Session 6 - Greg

Session 06 (2024-09-13) - Greg

Last time

After taking Amelia back to Lepett and taking a long rest, the party returned to Bad Doric the next day. There’s evidence that the white skull have mostly used the town, not the temple, and it isn’t indicative of a permanent camp. Rather, it’s a place they stay a few days and leave.

Kira decided to explore the springs in the temple, so she transformed into a fish to explore the spring and see where it goes. Under the water, she discovered some sort of shadow elemental, something from Shadowfel. Her guess is that the elemental was being fed through the well, perhaps via herbs or other offerings. The creature is also immobile, so it must be bound somehow.

Throughout the underground portion of the temple, the rooms and tunnels have had heavy, rough-hewn lumber for framing. The eastern room’s rubble includes narrow logs like might be found fallen, rather than the heavy duty rough-hewn logs elsewhere.

Camp outside Bad Doric

The party discussed what we should do next, referencing Kira’s discovery of the elemental and the journals. Some theories discussed:

  • Mother Isabel Verduna may be the daughter of the Isabel mentioned in the journals
  • We note that the journals don’t make a reference to the rot, only to the sweating sickness (a generic term for a fever). It isn’t clear whether this is significant. When we asked Mother Verduna, she said that the rot has been around since she took over the Lazaretto.

Hiking back to the Lazaretto

The party spent 2 days hiking back to The Lazaretto with Lepett and Amelia. They had a minor encounter with goblins and destroy them with little consequence.

Lepett thinks Mother Verduna is the closest thing there is to a saint.

The Lazaretto

The party met with Mother Verduna in the Lazaretto. Hugh described finding Bad Doric and the Order of Hospitalers Temple with the White Skull.

Hugh showed Mother Verduna the journals that Sling found in the temple. Verduna pulled the party into the Temple of Ilmater to read through the journals and discuss them.

  • Gavin: “What do you know about Mother Viola Laguna?”
  • Mother Verduna: “She was the last of the Hospitalers, and order of healers that used natural healing springs. Within the hospitalers, there were some devoted to healing waters, some to healing airs, some to other elements. The order traces itself generally to an old elven god Delphian who generally manifests as a water elemental. The Hospitalers are a small order that originating from the Reach, far east of here (including kingsdoms like Sespech, but generally quite far away). What a sad ending.”
  • Gavin: “Have you ever been out to the spring?”
    • No
  • What about Sister Isabella?
    • Isabella was Mother Verduna’s mother
    • Isabel: “It’s painful to talk about her. Isabella came from Bad Doric to the Lazaretto to help with the people who were dealing with the sweating sickness. When Isabel was born, very youn, she was given away. She beleives her father was the cleric of Ilmater that founded the Lazaretto, but it isn’t certain. Isabel suspect Isabella didn’t think it a good place to raise a child. I was sent north, educated, learned what Isabella had devoted her self to, Isabel came back but ISabella and her presumed father were gone. The place needed help, so Isabel did what she could.”
    • The Lazaretto is Isabel’s connection to her mother
  • Gavin: “Do you know why the orcs would refer to the witches as ‘Laguna-kin’?” - Gavin describes our discovery of the ‘Laguna-kin’ order of witches that are leading the white skull and the Occhi-de-vermi
    • Isabel: “I don’t know. I see the last of the mothers taken by the White Skull after the spring failed. I can only imagine her faith remained strong and showed a way, perhaps those orc women in the White Skull found something in Mother Viola Laguna’s faith, dignity, and humility inspiring. I don’t know. The people who are suffering here in the Lazeretto from disease, humiliation, and isolation mostly succumb to despair. Those who do not, like Lepett, may still thrive even when withered.”
    • Isabel: “What is a greater power than needing nothing and thriving? I see an analogy amongst the sick here.”
  • Kira: “Do you have your mother’s research on the sweating sickness?
    • ISabel: “There isn’t much. Is there something specific you’d like to know?”
    • Kira: “I’d like to know what she learned in her research.”
    • Isabel: “I will look, but these journals are more than I’ve ever known about her.”

Isabel vaguely remember Sister Elara.

Sister Nightsong never lived at Bad Doric, but followed the teachings of the order that were passed down. She has never visited the temple to Isabel’s knowledge.

  • Kira: Do you know anyone who dabbles with Shadowfell?
  • Isabel: I know some Eladrin, but not sure what you mean by dabble.
  • Kira: Anyone strong enough to bind an elemental?
  • Isabel: Certainly none that I know of here. Elementals are not my expertise. Some may be strong enough to bind a Shinva, a lesser elemental, maybe? But nothing major.

Question: Was isabella the final sister with access to the well?

  • Isabel: Did you see any taint or corruption there?
  • Kira: Best guess, they were feeding children to the shadow elemental in the water.
  • Isabel: You found this well where the spring was poisoned and this sign that the white skull had put upon it. I don’t want you to think that I expect anything, but have you learned anything about what they left behind or the poisons and potions they left behind? There’s power in rituals, substances, and faith. Do you know what it does or what it’s for?
  • Hugh: We think we know the poison, but we don’t know the power of it.

Isabel has never left this plane to explore the Feywild or Shadowfel.

Gavin shares the poisons we discovered with Mother Verduna.

(Leaving this discussion out of the record.)

Mother Verduna doesn’t know what the poisons do. She has asked if we have considered experimenting with the poisons on some test creature to see what effect it has.

Barrick asks Verduna to perform the experiment she suggests. Verduna sends Lepett to find a creature and apply the poison to a bit of food. Lepett find a chameleon and the chameleon eats the food. Soon after, when a grasshopper enters the chameleon’s pen, the chameleon goes into a self-damaging rage and it doesn’t stop. The flash of intense violence is brief, a minute or two, at which point the chameleon stumbles and collapses. It appears dead, but it is actually alive in a deep sleep. This is likely the stuff that they were going to give the children.

Did Amelia seen anyone go into a violent rage in Bad Doric?

It was a sport among the orcs in the Bad Doric to take men out of the cages, lead them away, and have them fight each other to the death.

Gavin intuits that the deeply unique thing about the two halfling children we rescued is that they are fully disconnected. Their home is gone, their family is gone, and they are a deeply direspected minority. No one will notice them, they are the closest thing to invisible that Riatavin may have.

The poison is effectively a potion of uncontrolled rage.

The party goes to meet Bikke who’s brought out of the infirmary where, after Bikke’s whisper, Kira suggests we enter the infirmary. We choose to enter the infirmary.

The Infirmary at the Lazaretto

There’s a small entrance and screened off areas, fabric enclosures. Moving down the hall, one bed is occupied by a middle aged, sickly man in the bed. Kira tells us that Bikke says this man is Albrecht Moray.

Kira can tell that the man is feverish with symptoms that match the early phases of the sweating sickness and the rot. The man does match the physical description we received of Albrecht Moray.

Kira casts Detect Thoughts on Albrecht to learn what he’s thinking in his ill state right now.

Albrecht is not dreaming, he’s borderline comatose from disease. Kira only detects flashes of imagery. She sees Hesse soldiers putting down miners, in the vintner’s folly watching women dance, in Aureltaran, talking to Boblin.

Gavin begins conversing with Albrecht to try to guide him through his fevered delirium.

Kira sees Albrecht’s mind flashing, starting with the halfling children and rolling backwards. She sees a large castle, [[Castle Tethyr]] on the Ith, deep in Tethyr proper. She catches images of Albrecht’s memories in Aureltaran, the Hesse estates in the mountains north of Aureltaran, and the face of a young woman named Ottillie Rhindaun, a princess of Tethyr. The vision of a young man with a cruel smirk, dark red hair, and a white streak. A flash of images entering Port Maraisa, and olive-skinned woman’s face, and The Vintner’s, Boblin, The Lazaretto, Boblin again, and then Grottio Montony. Then, cramps, pain, and a fade into the oblivion of fever.

Gavin knows that the Rhinduan are the royalty of Tethyr and Ottillie is a niece, technically a princess but low on the totem pole and likely married off for political advantage.

Speculation: Albrecht isn’t a political power player, so while Ottillie and Albrecht were interested in each other, they’re not going to get married as-is. Perhaps he’s trying to murder competition for Ottilie’s affection. Seems more likely that he’s here on a political mission than for personal gain.

Hugh starts talking about Mother Verduna and asks how long Albrecht was here

“Not quite a month. He’s a complicated man, but anyone who comes here deserves our care and attention.”

“Is he going to survive?”

“He’s a fighter. The normal course is two, maybe three weeks of fever. Then a person either passes or the fever subsides and they begin to change.”

“What did you mean by him being a complicated fellow?”

“I don’t know what happens in palaces and casstles, or the machinations of power. I think he does and I think that’s what he works towards. I think that’s what weighs on him. When we spoke, I didn’t think he was a bad man, but rather a man who sometimes felt it necessary to do bad things. Those are different, but not easy.”

Bikke: “What was he doing with the children.”

“I don’t know, he didn’t speak to me about it. I know he spoke with Boblin and he came here at Boblin’s recommendation. I don’t know what he and Boblin had planned.”

He spent time with Elena Delphino (Head of the merchant’s guild), but has received no visitors since Boblin.

Gavin: “If we’re not around, can you send word about his prognosis, be it death or rot?”

“My faith dictates that my first responsibility is to the people under my care. After that, if it is not in conflict with his wellbeing, I will send word.”

Hugh: “Did he come with anything, any papers?”

“I found him in a rowboat at the dock, alone. He had his clothes and the knife on his hip.”

Barrick: “Does anyone else know who he is?”

“The doctors and Sister Nightsong.”

Mother Verduna thinks Albrecht wanted the rage poison for some reason. Perhaps to “sow the seeds of chaos”.

That Night

Bikke tells Lepett that Albrecht was sending children to Riatavin so Lepett should make sure Albrecht doesn’t leave. Lepett responds, “That man is of my house. If he is to live, he is to live his days out here.”

Speculation (Gavin): Albrecht may try to escape the Lazaretto if he survives, though it may be difficult.

When Bikke woke up, he heard Verduna tell Albrecht he needed to rest to have the strength for what was to come. In context, it seems likely a reference to the strength to withstand the rot. Her interest in the serum was sketchy.

Question (Hugh): Is there a connection between the planar plants in the mirefen and the shadowfell shadow in the well?

speculation (Kira): Probably a mix between the planar plants, well water with shadow, milk, and semen on this sacrificial altar/bench in the tunnel make this thing. Possible the shadow creature is corrupting the swamp and everything else.

On nature check: The feywild is a place of intense emotion and heightened feeling. The shadowfell is the inverse of the feywild, likely tying to the malaise we experience in the vicinity of the swamp.

Armitage said Albrecht went to port maraisa and disappeared.

Albrecht went to Port Maraisa to do something with an orc gang that is profiting from a shadow elemental and presumably was translating that into action against the Auttencort and Tethyrian royal family.