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<blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 8529553" data-attributes="member: 6816692"><p>Session 52</p><p><strong>The other Fey Stag </strong></p><p><strong> </strong></p><p>While we're waiting for King Aodhan's final call on the matter of secrets, we return to Flint and use the spare time to catch up on the case of Ulrik as knowing more about his experiences might be key to helping Andrei. Or more precisely, the progress of his questioning. Our colleagues at the RHC tell us that they already managed to get a bit more information from the young man, but that we're also free to ask our own questions.</p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 168, 95)"></span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 168, 95)">(We regularly check on old threads if we got some spare time <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> )</span></p><p></p><p>Ulrik appears to be a bit more open this time. He tells us that he wasn't forced to play Nicodemus' host, he rather volunteered and was payed reasonably well so that Lya Jierre could talk to the summoned spirit in this delicate mission of hers. Ulrik doesn't know too much about the mechanics of the process, just that he's been injected with an alchemomagical substance and always lost his consciousness shortly after. He wasn't able to remember a thing when he woke up, which would make this the perfect process if one tried to keep the exchange between his mistress and Nicodemus a secret.</p><p></p><p>We thank Ulrik for his honesty and ask our colleagues to treat the young man fairly. Then we discuss on how to apply this knowledge to the case of Andrei. We assume that, like with Ulrik, his mind might be unconscious and usually unable to realize what's going on. But unlike Ulrik, the possession of Andrei appears to be permanent (at least that's what Macbannin hinted at), so separating Nicodemus from Andrei might be trickier. But also unlike Ulrik, Andrei had shown one case where his mind woke up and was able to gain control for a moment. But that might be related to Andrei being an unwilling host. So we guess that one strategy could be to make Andrei an uninteresting host for Nicodemus by beating him until he's unable to move. And while that might sound cruel, we know that Andrei will heal the damage eventually, so it would simply be a matter of time until Nicodemus got fed up with being caught in an unusable body.</p><p></p><p>We keep that thought in mind and are then handed a sealed letter sent by the King, containing a secret we may use in case of demonic emergency.</p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 168, 95)"></span></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 168, 95)">(Reading “break in case of emergency”. Aodhan is one hell of a witty character)</span></p><p></p><p>As we want to bring as many of Kasvarina's fragmented memories back before we enter the really dangerous places, we decide to enter the Pardwright Library to let her scan all the maps we can find with the Arc placed on her head. And to our pleasant surprise, our plan works as she feels a faint tingling while looking at a map of Trekhom and of Cherage.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 168, 95)">(don't know if Tiz was being generous or if the Arc is meant to act that way. But it was a nice shortcut to get a potential “full completion”)</span></p><p></p><p>We discuss this with Kasvarina and she agrees on a small detour to Trekhom before going to Sid Minos and ultimately Odiem. While planning our trip, Auryn tells Gabriel that he was right about what he said regarding Ushanti: That the decision on whether or not to keep Ajit as the “Partiarch” was Kasvarina's alone, even if that included ending the factual reign of the Obs in the enclave - one of our main goals. She explains that it is hard to hold back when it comes to her home nation, as she sees making Elfaivar a better and safer place for her kind as her duty. And that doing more (and maybe too much) feels better than doing (too) little.</p><p></p><p>Gabriel is positively surprised to see Auryn coming to this conclusion this quickly. He is glad that she is able to let Ushanti be for now. Also, he isn't sure whether it would be a good idea to reinstate the image of “Kasvarina, the High Matriarch” in everyone's mind as none of us (including Kasvarina herself) has a clear picture on who this person truly was. After all, Kasvarina used a good portion of her time as Matriarch to hunt down members of the Clergy, even before Launga's death. Which meant that this Matriarch undermined all efforts of forging peace with Crisillyir, as impossible as this peaceful solution might have seemed, and also betrayed the philosophy of Vekesh.</p><p></p><p>“Is you see it in a radical light, the old Kasvarina might be the complete opposite to the new one. And I don't know whether it would be wise to revive such a potentially hollow symbol”, Gabriel states with a thoughtful sigh.</p><p></p><p>Auryn doesn't see old Kasvarina that negative as she states that, when everyone was in despair and felt as if the nation of Elfaivar would fall apart, it was her who had the resolve to carry on and survive. And that by being one of the three High Matriarchs, she became not only a symbol, but a pillar of this tiny new elfaivaran blossom. She also points out that, right before Launga's death, Kasvarina was, in her function as Matriarch of Ushanti, willing to let go of her hatred and give peace and renewal a true chance. Which is why it is likely in her eyes that “new Kasvarina” might utilize the positive aspects of her past and continue on this path.</p><p></p><p>“But I guess we can agree that after all she and we have seen and learned about Nicodemus, she will not simply follow him and their Obscurati again. Not after knowing that it was him who was directly responsible for my great-grandmother's death with all of his lies and schemes”, she says with a bitter undertone.</p><p></p><p>Auryn adds that Kas also saw that even young Miller had lied to her from the start, so this would be another reason to not trust him ever again. But what is still uncertain would be the question whether Kasvarina would rather join us in our fight against the Obscurati or whether she'd simply want to find peace and live a life free of conflict. But no matter what, we agree to support her in her decision.</p><p></p><p>Then we seek out Kasvarina to discuss a wholly different and more present matter: The state of her relationship with Asrabey. We tell her our assessment of his behavior as we feel like he is still acting purely out of a sense of duty towards his Matriarch, and that we are not sure if this might lead to a large problem if not addressed. We ask Kasvarina how she thinks about Asrabey and it seems like she isn't too sure herself. Which also isn't too ideal of a situation. So we suggest that it would be fairest towards Asrabey if she made up her mind regarding her stance towards the Dreadnaught and then start giving him the right signals no matter what her decision may look like.</p><p></p><p>Kasvarina then says that she knows she isn't the person Asrabey married and that she might never go back to being this version of herself. But she feels much more confident now that she knows who she had been and which parts of her past persona she likes and loathes from her present point of view. We agree that she managed to regain much of her strength and encourage her to seek a solution to the Asrabey problem depending on her own feelings.</p><p></p><p>We and Kasvarina also agree that Asrabey has to decide on his stance towards Kasvarina should he be freed from his duties and vows. Auryn points out that this holds a certain risk as to her knowledge Asrabey has never been without duty or at least a concrete task, so this might leave him hanging in the air and without bonds. Still it would be a risk worth taking as Kasvarina doesn't want to feel as if he's simply her servant. So she decides to take Asabey on a picnic and talk to him about their future before we depart to Trekhom.</p><p></p><p>While Kasvarina is off with Asrabey, and we are busy packing our equipment for the trip to Trekhom and Odiem, we hear someone knocking at the door. Auryn is a bit wary as she didn't expect any visitors nor did she expect Kasvarina and Asrabey to return so soon. Her gut feeling turns out to be right when she sees two satyrs standing in front of the door who immediately attack her. One of them tries to grab her, while the other one gives her a quick grin and tries to get her to undress with an enchantment spell. For a moment, she is baffled and manages to evade the grab and shake off the enchantment. But before she can ask what the heck would be wrong with them, she feels a sharp pain as a formerly invisible pixie stabs her from behind with a rather long dagger.</p><p></p><p>Her surprised scream alerts Gabriel Carlyle while Auryn, now fully alert of the threat enters a fully defensive stance. While fighting, the satyrs argue with their smaller companion that they'd rather humiliate than mincemeat their enemy while the pixie seems to be in a more stabby-zealot mood. It doesn't take Gabriel too long to grab his weapons, teleport to the front door and surprise the attackers in return. Being fully armed, it doesn't take him too long to overpower and knock out the three fey. He then tends to his partner's wounds and is very much relieved to see that despite having a knife in her back, she is very much alive and going to recover with a few healing potions.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 168, 95)">(It has been a while since Auryn had taken that much damage in a single blow. If I remember it correctly, the sneak attack from the pixie dealt 1/3 of her hp or so. Also, Tiz somehow has a habit of ambushing my characters with rogues/assassins... my very first character death was four ninjas vs. my very harmless, sleeping 3.0 bard. Who got also stabbed by Cyric with Godsbane in a prior ToT adventure. Weird <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite8" alt=":D" title="Big grin :D" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":D" /> )</span></p><p></p><p>We drag the fey to the basement to question them on their motives to attack Auryn. Turns out that the Satyrs are bounty hunters, following their fellow hunter pixie, who has personal ties to another fey called the Stag of the Winter Field, who is a member of the Hedgehog Court and follower of renegade Olazdor. The Stag, they say, put a good bounty on our heads, so they decided to give it a try.</p><p></p><p><span style="color: rgb(65, 168, 95)">(In retrospect, this was a rather good foreshadowing. Unfortunately, we both had forgotten the name Olazdor when we arrived in the Dreaming in the next adventure)</span></p><p></p><p>As we have never heard of a renegade Court in the Dreaming, we decide to meet this mysterious Stag on his own turf. So we hand the satyrs over to the RHC together with a report of their attack on two RHC agents and have the pixie lead us to the Winter Field, a place right next to a faerie circle near Parity Lake in the Dreaming. As the crossings to the Dreaming are highly unstable right now, we ask the pixie what this Stag might be up to and why he'd put a bounty on our heads. The pixie tells us that both the noises and the pollution stemming from the Lake are deadly for the Fey on the other side of the circle. And that the Stag, being responsible for his Winter Field, saw that we're allies of the King who encouraged Flint to continue this practice of pollution.</p><p></p><p>We explain the pixie that we are both against the ongoing natural disaster that is Parity Lake, and that this pollution is dangerous for humans and animals in the Waking as well. So we'd rather fight for a habitable Parity Lake on both sides of the border, but that would obviously only be possible if we're alive and use our influence to sway politicians like Stanfield or the King. The pixie seems to understand our reasoning and we let her free on the condition that she'll arrange for a meeting with this mysterious Stag of the Winter Field.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lylandra, post: 8529553, member: 6816692"] Session 52 [B]The other Fey Stag [/B] While we're waiting for King Aodhan's final call on the matter of secrets, we return to Flint and use the spare time to catch up on the case of Ulrik as knowing more about his experiences might be key to helping Andrei. Or more precisely, the progress of his questioning. Our colleagues at the RHC tell us that they already managed to get a bit more information from the young man, but that we're also free to ask our own questions. [COLOR=rgb(65, 168, 95)] (We regularly check on old threads if we got some spare time ;) )[/COLOR] Ulrik appears to be a bit more open this time. He tells us that he wasn't forced to play Nicodemus' host, he rather volunteered and was payed reasonably well so that Lya Jierre could talk to the summoned spirit in this delicate mission of hers. Ulrik doesn't know too much about the mechanics of the process, just that he's been injected with an alchemomagical substance and always lost his consciousness shortly after. He wasn't able to remember a thing when he woke up, which would make this the perfect process if one tried to keep the exchange between his mistress and Nicodemus a secret. We thank Ulrik for his honesty and ask our colleagues to treat the young man fairly. Then we discuss on how to apply this knowledge to the case of Andrei. We assume that, like with Ulrik, his mind might be unconscious and usually unable to realize what's going on. But unlike Ulrik, the possession of Andrei appears to be permanent (at least that's what Macbannin hinted at), so separating Nicodemus from Andrei might be trickier. But also unlike Ulrik, Andrei had shown one case where his mind woke up and was able to gain control for a moment. But that might be related to Andrei being an unwilling host. So we guess that one strategy could be to make Andrei an uninteresting host for Nicodemus by beating him until he's unable to move. And while that might sound cruel, we know that Andrei will heal the damage eventually, so it would simply be a matter of time until Nicodemus got fed up with being caught in an unusable body. We keep that thought in mind and are then handed a sealed letter sent by the King, containing a secret we may use in case of demonic emergency. [COLOR=rgb(65, 168, 95)] (Reading “break in case of emergency”. Aodhan is one hell of a witty character)[/COLOR] As we want to bring as many of Kasvarina's fragmented memories back before we enter the really dangerous places, we decide to enter the Pardwright Library to let her scan all the maps we can find with the Arc placed on her head. And to our pleasant surprise, our plan works as she feels a faint tingling while looking at a map of Trekhom and of Cherage. [COLOR=rgb(65, 168, 95)](don't know if Tiz was being generous or if the Arc is meant to act that way. But it was a nice shortcut to get a potential “full completion”)[/COLOR] We discuss this with Kasvarina and she agrees on a small detour to Trekhom before going to Sid Minos and ultimately Odiem. While planning our trip, Auryn tells Gabriel that he was right about what he said regarding Ushanti: That the decision on whether or not to keep Ajit as the “Partiarch” was Kasvarina's alone, even if that included ending the factual reign of the Obs in the enclave - one of our main goals. She explains that it is hard to hold back when it comes to her home nation, as she sees making Elfaivar a better and safer place for her kind as her duty. And that doing more (and maybe too much) feels better than doing (too) little. Gabriel is positively surprised to see Auryn coming to this conclusion this quickly. He is glad that she is able to let Ushanti be for now. Also, he isn't sure whether it would be a good idea to reinstate the image of “Kasvarina, the High Matriarch” in everyone's mind as none of us (including Kasvarina herself) has a clear picture on who this person truly was. After all, Kasvarina used a good portion of her time as Matriarch to hunt down members of the Clergy, even before Launga's death. Which meant that this Matriarch undermined all efforts of forging peace with Crisillyir, as impossible as this peaceful solution might have seemed, and also betrayed the philosophy of Vekesh. “Is you see it in a radical light, the old Kasvarina might be the complete opposite to the new one. And I don't know whether it would be wise to revive such a potentially hollow symbol”, Gabriel states with a thoughtful sigh. Auryn doesn't see old Kasvarina that negative as she states that, when everyone was in despair and felt as if the nation of Elfaivar would fall apart, it was her who had the resolve to carry on and survive. And that by being one of the three High Matriarchs, she became not only a symbol, but a pillar of this tiny new elfaivaran blossom. She also points out that, right before Launga's death, Kasvarina was, in her function as Matriarch of Ushanti, willing to let go of her hatred and give peace and renewal a true chance. Which is why it is likely in her eyes that “new Kasvarina” might utilize the positive aspects of her past and continue on this path. “But I guess we can agree that after all she and we have seen and learned about Nicodemus, she will not simply follow him and their Obscurati again. Not after knowing that it was him who was directly responsible for my great-grandmother's death with all of his lies and schemes”, she says with a bitter undertone. Auryn adds that Kas also saw that even young Miller had lied to her from the start, so this would be another reason to not trust him ever again. But what is still uncertain would be the question whether Kasvarina would rather join us in our fight against the Obscurati or whether she'd simply want to find peace and live a life free of conflict. But no matter what, we agree to support her in her decision. Then we seek out Kasvarina to discuss a wholly different and more present matter: The state of her relationship with Asrabey. We tell her our assessment of his behavior as we feel like he is still acting purely out of a sense of duty towards his Matriarch, and that we are not sure if this might lead to a large problem if not addressed. We ask Kasvarina how she thinks about Asrabey and it seems like she isn't too sure herself. Which also isn't too ideal of a situation. So we suggest that it would be fairest towards Asrabey if she made up her mind regarding her stance towards the Dreadnaught and then start giving him the right signals no matter what her decision may look like. Kasvarina then says that she knows she isn't the person Asrabey married and that she might never go back to being this version of herself. But she feels much more confident now that she knows who she had been and which parts of her past persona she likes and loathes from her present point of view. We agree that she managed to regain much of her strength and encourage her to seek a solution to the Asrabey problem depending on her own feelings. We and Kasvarina also agree that Asrabey has to decide on his stance towards Kasvarina should he be freed from his duties and vows. Auryn points out that this holds a certain risk as to her knowledge Asrabey has never been without duty or at least a concrete task, so this might leave him hanging in the air and without bonds. Still it would be a risk worth taking as Kasvarina doesn't want to feel as if he's simply her servant. So she decides to take Asabey on a picnic and talk to him about their future before we depart to Trekhom. While Kasvarina is off with Asrabey, and we are busy packing our equipment for the trip to Trekhom and Odiem, we hear someone knocking at the door. Auryn is a bit wary as she didn't expect any visitors nor did she expect Kasvarina and Asrabey to return so soon. Her gut feeling turns out to be right when she sees two satyrs standing in front of the door who immediately attack her. One of them tries to grab her, while the other one gives her a quick grin and tries to get her to undress with an enchantment spell. For a moment, she is baffled and manages to evade the grab and shake off the enchantment. But before she can ask what the heck would be wrong with them, she feels a sharp pain as a formerly invisible pixie stabs her from behind with a rather long dagger. Her surprised scream alerts Gabriel Carlyle while Auryn, now fully alert of the threat enters a fully defensive stance. While fighting, the satyrs argue with their smaller companion that they'd rather humiliate than mincemeat their enemy while the pixie seems to be in a more stabby-zealot mood. It doesn't take Gabriel too long to grab his weapons, teleport to the front door and surprise the attackers in return. Being fully armed, it doesn't take him too long to overpower and knock out the three fey. He then tends to his partner's wounds and is very much relieved to see that despite having a knife in her back, she is very much alive and going to recover with a few healing potions. [COLOR=rgb(65, 168, 95)](It has been a while since Auryn had taken that much damage in a single blow. If I remember it correctly, the sneak attack from the pixie dealt 1/3 of her hp or so. Also, Tiz somehow has a habit of ambushing my characters with rogues/assassins... my very first character death was four ninjas vs. my very harmless, sleeping 3.0 bard. Who got also stabbed by Cyric with Godsbane in a prior ToT adventure. Weird :D )[/COLOR] We drag the fey to the basement to question them on their motives to attack Auryn. Turns out that the Satyrs are bounty hunters, following their fellow hunter pixie, who has personal ties to another fey called the Stag of the Winter Field, who is a member of the Hedgehog Court and follower of renegade Olazdor. The Stag, they say, put a good bounty on our heads, so they decided to give it a try. [COLOR=rgb(65, 168, 95)](In retrospect, this was a rather good foreshadowing. Unfortunately, we both had forgotten the name Olazdor when we arrived in the Dreaming in the next adventure)[/COLOR] As we have never heard of a renegade Court in the Dreaming, we decide to meet this mysterious Stag on his own turf. So we hand the satyrs over to the RHC together with a report of their attack on two RHC agents and have the pixie lead us to the Winter Field, a place right next to a faerie circle near Parity Lake in the Dreaming. As the crossings to the Dreaming are highly unstable right now, we ask the pixie what this Stag might be up to and why he'd put a bounty on our heads. The pixie tells us that both the noises and the pollution stemming from the Lake are deadly for the Fey on the other side of the circle. And that the Stag, being responsible for his Winter Field, saw that we're allies of the King who encouraged Flint to continue this practice of pollution. We explain the pixie that we are both against the ongoing natural disaster that is Parity Lake, and that this pollution is dangerous for humans and animals in the Waking as well. So we'd rather fight for a habitable Parity Lake on both sides of the border, but that would obviously only be possible if we're alive and use our influence to sway politicians like Stanfield or the King. The pixie seems to understand our reasoning and we let her free on the condition that she'll arrange for a meeting with this mysterious Stag of the Winter Field. [/QUOTE]
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