Mark of Darkness - 12/10/2022 - A Kavel Perspective

The Cat and Badger - New Hillborrow

I am Goliath. It was very cramped in this halfling building. This was to be expected I suppose. We all had drinks and were sold on the idea of an assortment of muffins by one of the staff - a halfling pushing muffins on you; also something to be expected. And to be fair the muffins were delicious - Halflings are muffin authorities.

There was some chit chat on the road over here. Derthaad mentioned a magical communication from someone who claimed they could remove the butterfly tattoo on his left palm, which is the mark of the Queen of Air and Darkness. But, my dragonborn sorcerer friend did not mention many details about the person or their skills.

“Comrade, where is this person?” I enquired, followed by further questions, “are they fey? What about Seelie? In fact, how much do you even know them?” Zola, however, was the one to respond. As the fey expert amongst us - she is fey - she casted doubt on whether someone could remove the tattoo, as it represented a fey bargain, and fey bargains are bargains sealed with layers of contractual magic. Apparently you can’t break these. My Drow duel-wielder friend noted my bangle as she emphasised the bond in a fey bargain.

A blackbird with a red beak and red feet flew in through a window and landed in the centre of our table. The bird looked at us all one by one, and then held a gaze at Derthaad, “you came good.” - The bird could talk. It continued, “finish your drinks then come to the edge of the Feythorn. I’ll be waiting,” and then off the bird went.

The muffins arrived and we finished our drinks. Kelne, my Halfling, tricksy cleric friend, picked up the basket of muffins. Kelne did not experience any crampedness in this tavern, for obvious reasons. Nor too did Beets for that matter, my fairy thicc-boi friend, who is normally consistently rambunctious. But, she was uncharacteristically quiet. Archie, my old human wizard friend, told me she learnt quite a bit about her mother recently. Maybe she was still processing that information. Although, she was talkative when we were in the city. The closer we got to New Hillborrow, the less chatty she became.

Outside the Cat and Badger I noticed posters for a Winter Festival. I can’t remember now if I’ve seen this before elsewhere, or if Archie told me he saw a poster elsewhere.

Many locals wished us good luck on our journey and offered us blessings from Tymora and Yondalla. Mendal, my dwarven cleric friend doesn’t offer blessings from Moradin - he tells us how lucky we are that he is blessed by Moradin.


The Outskirts of the Feythorn

“Why is it called the Feythorn? Is it Fey related,” I asked out of curiosity. Zola said she didn’t know, but she had first been here 80 years ago. Zola is 158 years old!

Kelne was offering around the muffins with a cheeky grin on their face. I didn’t want one, but they said, “I’ve given you one anyway.” Before I could look for the hidden muffin on my person, we heard a voice from the trees.

“Sergeant Derthaad i presume?”

A fey woman appeared behind us. She had a good body. Just like Toothy’s mum. All fey have a certain something about them, I’m beginning to notice… I will be careful how I bring this up with Nathalie.


Drusilia

Drusilia introduced herself and began inspecting Derthaad’s mark, which began moving up and around his arm to avoid her gaze.

Drusilia expressed that she was willing to remove the mark, if we did something for her in the Feywild. Many questions followed as we tried to determine if Drusilia was trustworthy. I was not only interested in my comrade not being conned, but I also didn’t want to report back to Nathalie that we swapped one Unseelie mark for something worse.

Removing the mark was important to comrade Derthaad, so we agreed to at least go to the Feywild, and see what task Drusilia needed us for.


The Feywild

I recognised the place immediately, we had been teleported to the Court of Harmony. I saw the large, abandoned temple, and the spot where I met Quliria the gemstone dragon - rest in peace, Quliria. Beets was saddened when she realised where we were. The day was not a good one for Beets. I offered her comfort, as I placed my hand on her shoulder.

The rocky ruins here looked very similar to the ones in the Witching Court I had visited with Beets, when we were helping comrade Gerhard with his archaeology. Drusilia mentioned the place used to thrive as a seat for all the seasons. She mentioned the place was filled with spirits that do not remember their purpose. She needed us to find five keys to a door inside, and then open the door and retrieve what was contained within. She stated that each of us have our own strengths that would each be useful in the upcoming task - meaning there would no doubt be a task where great athletics will be useful. Good.
Drusilia said if we only found some of the keys, she would honour her side of the bargain and remove Derthaad’s mark. However, if we retrieved whatever was behind the door; there would be a boon for my Watch member comrade. Emphasising the horror of a Fey bargain, Drusilia mentioned if we returned empty handed, her disappointment would be the least of our problems…


Reassessing

We had to check. It was commendable, and appreciated that my friend wanted the mark removed so that I might be in less trouble with Nathalie. But, I wasn’t in any more trouble than I could be on this matter. And for him not to be able to roam freely in the Summer Court on account of the Unseelie mark; well, this wasn’t terrible. Not ideal, but not terrible. But, comrade Derthaad insisted, and Drusilia convinced us that she was not tricking us. As she put it, the act of her removing the mark for my comrade, would be good for her too, as she intended to reacquaint herself with the Court. So, by removing the mark of someone who tried to prevent the rise to the throne of the queen, it would see her in good stead.
My comrade’s final words on the bargain before accepting were that if we discovered it would not be beneficial to the Summer Court to give Drusila the item she wanted, then he would accept whatever punishment comes from breaking a Fey bargain. I found this commendable. Zola was stunned and questioned me on whether Derthaad had truly said what he said. I said he did, and I thought it admirable… but, I am a little worried that to this day neither me nor my more intelligent comrade really know what a fey bargain is.

Ignorance aside, I said that since Derthaad was one of my two most intelligent friends (actually, one of three now that Archie has joined me and Mendal on Kantas) if he wanted to go forward with a new bargain; I would help.

Drusilia pulled out a foot and a half long brass lever from some hidden magical place and gave it to Derthaad. It was a tool for inside the temple. We were asked politely to not break anything inside. Zola wanted to confirm an answer to something that came up in discussion; who was meant to be inside? Drusilia had a hint of sadness about her, when she said she thought it best if we just found out for ourselves. She wished us luck.


The Entrance Inside

A large stone slab lay on the ground next to the temple on its eastern side. I flipped the stone slab over revealing a tunnel, like a slide, for us to travel down. We all managed to fit in the tunnel, even Corr’Vandor with his huge antlers.

We arrived in a stone chamber with a high vaulted ceiling. No windows, but cracks in the moss covered stonework let sunlight pour through from above.

The hallway before us sloped down towards a set of extremely large stone doors. Branching off twice to the left and right were four other passageways.

As is customary, comrade Derthaad began casting the Detect Magic ritual. We decided to explore the first left hand corridor. Kelne offered to cast the Pass without a Trace spell to limit our trackable presence. But, I suggested that since we didn’t appear to be on a heist mission, we may look like arseholes to the spirits who live here, if we snuck around the place.

Around the corner, Zola translated a riddle for us, and naturally Comrade Derthaad provided the answer, which in turn opened a hidden door. Beets was furious and exclaimed, “why is Dert’s puzzle so much easier than mine!” This, I believe, was in reference to her time in a sphinx’s temple with Archie - the magical puzzles, I hear, were quite challenging.

The new room had a brass bowl on an altar. Inside the bowl was, a halfling heart. Derthaad mentioned the word sacrifice, then was hit with psychic pain, which visibly made his marked hand pulse. His eyes went white, and for a minute, though he was breathing, he was unresponsive. When he came to, he described a vision. I asked my friend if he wanted me to voluntarily receive psychic pain from the magic here, so that I could respond with my Stonehand Fighting Special Psychic Counter Attack - and hope to cause psychic pain back to the room. He said that wouldn’t be necessary, and Kelne applied their healing magic to Derthaad.

We came back to the central hallway, and stood in the centre of where the four corridors branched out, nearer to the solid, double stone doors. I noted that one of the corridors was blocked by stone. It was clear to me that this would be a task for me. I reserved it, since my comrades intended to go through the corridor opposite it, where Zola had divinely sensed a continuation of the same vibles she felt in the halfling heart room.

Together, in the room closest to the left of the great stone doors, Derthaad and I pointed out to our comrades what the statue carvings were depicting. There were five statues. One for each season and a central statue representing all the seasons, but the face was smashed off. “Vandalism!” I pointed it out to my friends. Zola recognised the figure as a person called Corellon.

Kelne wanted to mend the face of Corellon with their awesome Shape Stone spell, which they used on Proxima Island to shape the word, ‘Kaveland’ into the cliffs. Alas, we could not find face pieces to help reconstruct Corellon’s face and know what the face should look like, and more importantly, we were far from finding keys. So, we moved on to the double arched stone doors, and pushed them open.


The All Seasons Courtyard

The doors opened to a towering chamber, like a living cathedral. The space seemed to be around 150ft cubed and tall enough for trees to stand tall. This indoors garden had a stream flowing down the centre, separating us from an ornate double arched door on the opposite side of the room.. There were three rocky features in the expansive chamber. Beyond some bushes and a path to our right stood a stone outcrop with a fountain at the top. Across the stream, behind the outcrop were loose stone boulders, and opposite the boulders, on the other side of the ornate doors was another outcrop, this one had a small encampment on it. In addition to these stone features, there was a marble dais in the middle, and an immense tree to the left that stood kingly amongst the rest of the greenery. To our immediate left opposite the green path to our right, was a small campfire with places to sit, surrounded by bushes. Autumn leaves fell from the sky. There were trees with brown and orange leaves around - the kingly tree included, but the continuing downpour of leaves seemed magical. To be fair, it was all magical in this chamber.


The Fountain and the Lion

We climbed the steps of the nearest stone outcrop to find a beautiful looking three tiered fountain. At the bottom of the lowest water bowl, was a fist sized, stone lion head. From atop the outcrop, we could see a sundial in the centre dais, and a humanoid woman in a dress on the outcrop near the new double arched doors.

Zola picked up the stone lion’s head, and her hand hurt from the freezing cold water inside the bowl. Derthaad took another look at the central dais with the sundial and had an idea. He climbed the step down to the dais and inserted the brass lever that Drusilia gave him into the sundial, and turned it a notch. The autumn leaves stopped falling, and the trees and plants lost whatever greenery was left. The fountain's water, and the stream froze, and the campfires went down. With the greenery and the vines now withered and withdrawn, new aspects of the chamber could be seen. The outcrop with the encampment, on the other side of the stream now had a revealed entrance to a cave.


The Cave and the Eagle

Derthaad almost stacked it walking over the frozen stream… it wasn’t entirely beneficial to have changed the season, one could argue. I leaped over the stream with my powerful legs. Poor Corr’Vandor looked like the majestic creature had lost his dignity, as his hooves made it very difficult for him to gain purchase.

There was now an elderly woman up on the encampment that Beets tried to talk to, but the lady was uninterested in us.

We walked inside the cave to find a large cavernous space inside where the stream’s mouth could be found. On the other side of a wooden bridge was another sundial. But, on the entrance side of the steam were two offshoot passages, with their entrances covered in a sheet of dense ice.

Now that the interior season was winter, it was bitterly cold. Or as I would call it, ‘mild’, for I am Goliath.

Derthaad used the Misty Step spell to avoid slipping on the frozen stream to get to the sundial. The bridge was a no-go - it was missing the centre. He cranked the dial with the brass lever, and winter mist dispersed, spring buds began to rapidly appear on the ground as the snow melted. And, the ice walls dissolved.

I walked into the smaller revealed space where a humanoid corpse lay. The dead person had two magical looking bottles and a very magical looking, spectacular longsword. “Rest in peace”, I said to the dead man, as I proceeded to take his gear. He wouldn’t be needing them.

In the larger of the previously blocked off spaces, the others found a grizzly bear that was hibernating for the winter. I love bears! I came straight over when I was done with my respectful looting.

Kelne had casted the Silence spell to not disturb the grizzly, and to tiptoe past the bear to the 20ft high plinth structure where the others spotted a stone head of an eagle similar in size to the stone lion head. The bear was waking up regardless, and a little confused it couldn’t hear its own yawn. Kelne dropped the spell.

Comrade Zola is fluent in animal languages like me, so we talked ‘bear’ and offered the grizzly some of our rations - a huge amount of our rations, this was a bear afterall. The bear started scoffing down our offering, instead of mauling us to death as bears tend to.

Beets flew up and retrieved the eagle head. There were gold coins in a large pond behind the plinth. Kelne was keen to scavenge the coins for the Temple of Tymora they were hoping to build in Port Ffirst. I gave them a hand.

Our entrance to the cave was covered in shrubbery. So, Derthaad cranked the sundial to change the season to summer. The entrance was now covered in shrubbery with thorns.

“You made it worse!” I pointed out. Two more cranks and we had winter again, which meant withered bushes, iced up secondary rooms, but clear entranceways.

On the way back to the central dias’s sundial, comrade Derthaad saw the shiny sword the dead man relinquished to me. There was a bit of a fuss about the matter. I was perplexed at how different this was to the other 30 odd adventures him and I had been on. I promised if Drusilia had a problem with it, or knew a relative of the dead man then I’d give up the sword. Otherwise; valid loot.


The Lake and the Serpent

I waited by the boulders. I was certain there was a hidden passage there. Beets waited up on the outcrop with the encampment, and when Derthaad cranked the sundial to spring, and winter gave way to warmer air, Beets saw a young, talkative girl in a blue dress.

Zola was waiting far opposite me by the tall bush corridor. She heard a satyr man playing by the campfire on a panflute. After a chat, it seemed the satyr vanished down the pathway Zola was originally waiting by. Zola learnt this place is called the Temple of Four Seasons.

With a new open path, we walked through to find a lake where the stream ran into, with a sandy shore, and a little island on the far side of the lake. On our shore though, was a sundial.

I guessed one option was to crank the sundial to winter, so we could all skate awkwardly across the lake. But, Beets could fly, and I estimated the lake was no wider than 70ft. So, as Beets took off and flew to the island, I squatted low and jumped, propelled myself across the lake to join her - eagle-style. Eagles have strong legs where I come from.

Beets was impressed with my new flight skills. As well she should be, it took an impressive amount of weight and repetitions on the squat rack to develop my flight legs.

On the island was a treasure chest, and a huge amount of pollinating spores. I felt like my allergies were really playing up. But, maybe the plants here were poisonous. Just as well a couple of thicc-bois went across, since we didn't problem solve with a sundial crank to winter.
Speaking of other problems that could have been solved with winter; Zola was being attacked by piranhas.

Inside the chest were two magical potions, some gems, and a stone serpent head. Beets took the serpent head, I added the rest to the communal loot bag, and then we flew back over to the others.

Derthaad cranked the central hall’s sundial to summer, and the boulders by the door requiring five keys suddenly had a visible new path.


The Boulders and the Dragon

Derthaad chose to Thunderstep across the stream to get to the boulders. This was a very loud spell. I was surprised we didn’t hear noise complaints from the spirits.

Zola said hello to the now older woman at the campfire and shared food and drink with her.

Through the boulders, we walked down a long, narrow corridor and came across two doors. One to a room with five large barrels full of drinking water. The second door led to a large courtyard with a sundial by the entrance way, and on the far opposite wall was a very expansive thicket. It seemed like something was hidden in the thicket that a seasonal change might reveal.

“Dert! We need your magic stick!” Beets yelled to Derthaad, who at the time was in the drinking water room.

I added to the request, “yes comrade. And bring the brass lever, too!” And I made myself and Beets have a good laugh.

Before comrade Derthaad used his ‘magic stick’ on the sundial, I walked up to the thicket. Several sprites jumped out and started singing a jolly song about how we just missed what we were looking for. Derthaad cranked the sundial, and summer gave way to autumn. The thicket became a huge pile of leaves, which formed an altar. Two green hags had appeared and were doing a ritual over a scarecrow to the right of the leaf pile - one hag was putting organs from a bucket into the scarecrow. Zola’s three mums are hags. She waved hello at them. They hissed back and brought the scarecrow to life to attack us. They do bargains and hellos differently in the Feywild.

The scarecrow tried to attack me and Zola with its wooden hands but missed. Kelne unleashed her cheeky cherub Spirit Guardians, while Zola - didn’t critically slash the scarecrow with her dual swords. Surprise! She actually did a wind spell, Gust of Wind and pushed the scarecrow away from us. Derthaad cranked the sundial, the weather became freezing, and the scarecrow disappeared.

Derthaad turned the sundial with the brass lever one more time to bring the season in the temple to spring and from the thicket/fallen leaves area of the room, a shambling mound with something embedded in its chest appeared and attacked us.

Kelne repositioned themselves so their cheeky Spirit Guardians would attack the mound. Beets flew towards the mound with her claws out and plunged them into the mound's chest - savage, and alarmingly on brand. However, she had spotted something I had not - a stone dragon head i.e. another key. And Beets yanked out the stone. The mound with a very visible chest wound looked to be in immense pain. Derthaad attacked high at the mound's head with a psychic spell. The mound recovered its senses and began to walk forward. As soon as its right foot came off the ground; I kicked it hard with my own leg, sweeping its leg into the air, and tripping the mound up. It fell prone on the ground.

“Zola! All yours!” I said, backing away, as duel swords spun through the air controlled by a fearsome swordmaster and tore the mound apart.

The seasonal change to spring, which generated the shambling mound also covered the exit with vines. Derthaad cranked the sundial one more time to bring us to summer. The vines vanished, and we exited the hidden room, crossed the stream and Derthaad cranked the central sundial to bring us to autumn. Falling leaves began to descend, and a space under the kingly tree revealed itself, as a hollow, large entranceway.


The Hollow Tree and The Goat

Another massive chamber. Feys must love hidden rooms, this temple has many of them. This one also had a sundial, and trees clustered around the perimeter, with one thick stump near the sundial, and opposite it, on the far wall, a rocky outcrop much like a pyramid.

Inside the stump was a treasure trove we added to our communal loot bag. There was a particularly nice dagger in there.

I squatted low and said, “Beets, I’ll race you to the top,” and Beets launched herself to the top of the pyramidal structure. I jumped and propelled myself skyward and managed to arch over Beets, and reach the top of the structure firsr. Beets was once again impressed with my flight legs. Legs are better than wings over short distances, it seems so to me. There was a stone goat head at the peak of this outcrop, so I picked it up. We now had five keys.


Unlocking the Door

No more sundial cranking with the brass lever. We left the season as autumn. A motherly looking woman stood on the outcrop with the encampment now. Zola engaged the woman who was singing a lovely song. Irshka was her name, but discovered the woman, or spirit was on a loop of sorts. I guessed Drusilia was right that the spirits here had become forgetful and purposeless. Although, Irshka did point out for us that the stone animal heads did go into the door.

By the double door with slots for five animal heads, we inserted the keys one by one; lion, eagle, serpent, dragon and goat. By placing the stone heads in the door, we completed a carved image of a rather large chimaera, which began to glow, as the door began to open. A bright, blinding light from behind the door shone out, and the soft echo of a horn was heard, and then… we were back outside where Drusilia left us before we entered the temple, and comrade Derthaad held in one hand the brass lever, and in the other a hunting horn.


Closing the Deal / Magical Surgery

“So you were successful. Amazing!” Drusilia said, greeting us.

Before Derthaad handed over the hunting horn, he asked for an explanation. Drusilia plainly stated it was a hunting horn (which was rather funny, I found) and then said it was something precious to her, that she hid away a long time ago.

Drusilia, when given the horn, held it very reverently, before stowing it away in some hidden magical pocket. She then announced that she will now honour the agreement with comrade Derthaad.

Drusicilia walked us aside, and instructed me and Beets to stand either side of Derthaad, in case he buckled during the process. Kelne was on standby in case emergency healing was required, and Zola was asked to play an accompanying tune.

“Play that tune from inside the temple,” I requested. Zola obliged. She is good.

Drusilia stood face to face with Derthaad and instructed him the process would hurt, and not to break eye contact with her. If he followed her words, she would be able to rid him of the mark and make things better. She held his marked arm with both of hers, and began pulling on it. She yanked and yanked, and we could see the mark moving from high on his arm down towards the hand where it first rested. Derthaad was in pain. The yanking was itself not gentle, but I presumed most of the pain was the mark resisting ejection.

“Get ready. Brace yourself!” Drusilia told Derthaad, both of them maintaining eye contact with each other. Me and Beets held one of his shoulders each, and Drusilia, in one final forceful tug on his arm separated his forearm and hand away from his elbow. There was a thread of darkness connecting Derthaad to his separated forearm and hand, which Drusilia now held. The hand twitched, and Derthaad did not seem to be in excruciating pain - although he was, just not 'arm separating pain'..

“Hold on!” I will create you something new!” She said, as she tossed the separated limb up in the air and magically weaved together something very similar. The original limb vanished. Drusilia connected her draconic appendage to Derthaad's stump. We saw the fingers and wrist move under Derthaad’s control. The scales of his new forearm seemed to shine with seasonal variance. There was an icy look, a fiery one, a verdant one and a multicoloured ‘blossoming’ look. It did return to it’s normal hue though, but with a red tinge just like Drusilia’s skin. Drusilia had not just removed the mark, and given Derthaad a new hand. She had also given hin extra magic, like how the magical tattoos work with their one-off spells. This was the boon she had promised for retrieving, what we now knew was her hunting horn.

“Pipper will be jealous,” I observed.


Returning Home

Drusilia offered to take us wherever we needed to go. Zola asked to go see her mothers in the Witching Court and was obliged. I couldn’t help but notice I was only a few hours walk away from the Damphenite Tangle, so I asked Drusilia if I could be transported there. Unfortunately, Drusiclia said she wasn’t familiar with the place. I guess it must be new, since she was last in the Summer Court?

So, I decided to join the others returning back to New Hillborrow. Before we left, Beets placed a muffin on the ground where she last saw Quliria.

Derthaad teleported us from New Hillborrow back to Daring Heights.

Zola had wished me well with my long distance relationship with Nathalie. She said Lord Jaezred and Imryll manage it well, so I will too. It was a little disappointing to be so close to Nathalie, when I was at the Temple of Four Seasons, and couldn't see her. But, in a week’s time there will be a new moon, and I’ll get to travel the Spirit Road and see her then. Now, I’ll have exciting news to tell her about Derthaad’s mark being removed, and the person we helped. I hope we helped a good person. Drusilia seemed alright. I wonder what Nathalie’s thoughts will be? Also, I wondered, “is Drusilia, Corellon?”


When I got home, I played with Timur and he went straight to my side pocket and found a muffin - Kelne.