#w/out abenthy

[kote-the-inn-keeper]

Underrated KKC character of the day: Abenthy 

[zippdementia]

Part 91 Alignment May Vary: A Final Farewell to Haggemoth

I mentioned this last post, but if you are interested in playing through Haggemoth in 5th Edition, Robert Kendzie and I have updated it so you can do just that! It is one of the most entertaining modules I have ever played, and I can’t recommend it enough! Check it out here.

This post continues our multi-part Return to Haggemoth blog post. Having found a way inside Haggemoth’s Sanctum, the companions are now faced with finding the Inevitable rumored to have been trapped here for centuries. So far, they’ve found other interesting things, including spell sucking tentacles that are a harbinger of the end times; a strange creature who lives inside the Sanctum’s paintings, known as the Painted Mummer; another strange creature living in the paintings, this one a gnomish ally named Lhu-Ee; and signs of destruction and several deadly monsters. But they have yet to come across the Inevitable. 

Finding the Inevitable isn’t their only goal, however. Milosh is also on a quest to rid himself of Illrastayne, picked up from a Marilith in Esheballa’s realm, and he’s been told the soul inside the sword made its contract here, in the sanctum.

This search leads the companions eventually to a thrice-locked door, a door which emanates such a powerful repulsion that it nearly causes Imoaza and Milosh to go mad from its effects. But they eventually find the keys hidden in Haggemoth’s Sanctum and open the door, to find an antechamber with yet another painting, this one of a Dark Tower. In the Tower the Mummer taunts them, telling them that if they go further, they will surely meet their end... and he encourages them to do so with glee, then slams shut the window to his tower and lets them make their decision.

They decide to push on, and they enter an unusual room.   

Demonic Delight

This room is dominated by a huge hunk of obsidian, sitting at its far end. Floating above it is one of the most ornate lutes you’ve ever seen, and from it strums unspeakably sad music, pouring out like the tears of an angel to fill the space around you.

Carrick is a paladin, and his divine senses go crazy when they enter the room, alerting him immediately that something dark and evil lurks here. It is then that the sword Illrastayne rises from Milosh’s Warforged back and begins to strike at the companions, darting around the room quickly and dealing massive damage with each strike. This is what Milosh feels he came here to do: defeat the sword. And so he fights it, and with his companions, they defeat the blade, Imoaza’s Blackrazor finally cutting it in two as the two blades clash.

Yet, it feels too easy, too straightforward. Milosh turns to the lute then, and raising his Abyss Breaker gunarm, he blasts it into a thousand pieces.

And instantly, Milosh disappears, while the blade laughs a deep and terrible laugh.

Milosh found himself in an unexpected place. It was a pavilion, the inside of a huge tent brimming with decadence. Pillows were stacked comfortably in all corners of the pavilion, while hookahs and wine bottles lay amid the piles like preludes to greater comforts. There was only one other person here, and Milosh knew instantly it was not what it seemed, for the visage it wore (that of a Halfling Bard) it wore like a bad fitting set of clothes. The halfling’s features were bloated and shadows played across his features, darkening them and bringing its wide curves into sharp focus. His smile was too large, his eyes too small and too black. His red hair blew in a wind that wasn’t there.

He gestured to a devan in front of him.

“I think it’s time we talked,” the demon said.

The demon tells Milosh that he is pleased that Milosh brought Illrastayne here, for the sword was only containing his full power. He gives his name as Athica-Ickzaz, and tells Milosh that he doesn’t mind if Milosh knows it, for he will never be able to control him. 

“The Halfing thought he could,” the demon says. “Fancied himself a warlock. And for a time, he was right. But I drove him to his death in the halls of White Plume Mountain, made him stick his head down a Manticore’s gullet. And at the very end I gave him just enough of himself back to realize what was about to happen.

“Even then, I was bound to him by our contract. But you’ve finally ended that. You’ve killed his last song. Now I am free to take another soul. Yours.”

Milosh argues, saying he is here to kill the demon and free himself, that he will never again be slave to another’s will and desires. But Athica-Ickzaz just laughs. He tells Milosh that there is no deal to be avoided here. Milosh’s soul is already his.

“I took it while you wallowed in self pity and misery. I took it the moment you failed your mission. I took it from you, and you didn’t even notice. I’ve been working on you ever since you first grasped my hilt in the Abyss. I didn’t bring you here to barter for what is already mine, Milosh. I brought you here to ask you a question. Three questions, actually. And I tell you what. If you can answer them all correctly, maybe I’ll reconsider.”

The questions are thus. Who are you? Who do you fight for? Who will mourn you while you are gone?

While Milosh is being asked these questions, back in the material plane, Imoaza and Carrick have been locked inside the room where the lute hung and are forced into combat against three Vrocks, flying demons with vicious claws and biting attacks, who explode into deadly spores when wounded. This battle turns dangerous fast, as I roll two critical hits against Carrick and Imoaza, dropping them down massively in health when they are already injured from their time spent in the sanctum. But they turn the tide, with Carrick giving himself magical weapons through his spells and divine smiting, so that he can injure the abyssal creatures, and Imoaza landing a critical blow of her own. She describes impaling one of the Vrocks against a wall, then withdrawing Blackrazor and in the same motion slicing its head off, before turning to try and help Carrick, who is flanked by the other two. Carrick fights with the ferocity of a zealot facing down his age old enemy, feeling the rage of Primus within his soul as these beings of Chaos try to bring him down.

Milosh, meanwhile, answers the questions. He is Milosh, nothing more and nothing less. He fights for himself. His friends will mourn him when he is gone. He says all of this with disdain, telling the demon with every answer that this little therapy session means nothing to him. That he has kept his mind focused on one thing: freedom. He won’t be turned from his course now.

The demon hears his answers, sometimes sullenly, and sometimes with anger. But when they are all spoken he simply laughs.

“Wrong.” he says. “There is but one right answer to all three questions. No one. 

“You are no one. You do not have an identity because you are nothing but the tools of others, as you shall now be my tool.

“You fight for no one. You say you fight for yourself, but you yourself are no one. You want freedom, but such is the way of chaos, not balance! For what is chaos but the ultimate expression of freedom?

“You say your friends will mourn you when you are gone, but no one will mourn you, Milosh. They intend to have you save the world, and die in the trying. They want to use you as much as I do. But my way at least is more honest to the desire in your heart.

“But here,” the demon says with mocking care in its voice. “I shall give you one last chance to free yourself. One last chance to prove that you do not want my bargain. For I left the sword some time ago, and took up residence somewhere more suited to my power, somewhere already filled with the essence of the abyss.”

Here the demon points, and Milosh follows its gaze and feels his heart go cold.

“Yes. Your prized weapon. Destroy the Abyss Breaker and you can have the so called freedom you desire. I’ll grant you ultimate freedom, freedom from all bounds.” The demon laughs madly, knowing that Milosh will never do this, knowing that it has won.

Indeed, Milosh kneels before the demon then. “Very well,” he says. “I accept your terms.”

The demon smiles and prepares to accept his new acolyte, but as Milosh finishes speaking, he powers up the Abyss Breaker one final time and unleashes its energy into the weapon itself, blowing it apart and off his arm. Athica-Ickzaz has time to give one final astonished scream of fury before the blast overwhelms him, destroying him once and for all.

Moments later, the remaining two Vrocks, their claws poised to rip the throats out of Imoaza and Carrick, suddenly cry out in pain as they burst into flame, dying along with their master.

There is a massive flash of white light and then, falling out of that light, is a figure they have never seen before, though they know him. A Half Orc, with a curious tattoo burned into his left cheek, falls prone and naked onto the floor of the contract room. They only know it is Milosh because of a single piece of his armor that remains to him, a plate over his chest, with a circular indentation in it, inside of which whir moving mechanical parts. Otherwise, Milosh has been freed of all bounds, as per the demon’s boastful promise. He is no longer an instrument of the Surveyor, who bound him to the prophecy so long ago. He is now Milosh again, Milosh of Eberron, free to make his own future.

And the first thing he does is borrow some clothes from Carrick’s rucksack. 

The Painted Mummer

Following Milosh’s unexpected transformation, the party gets a much needed short rest, which is all the time they can spare at the moment. Lhu-Ee warns them the Ethereal is still being torn into by the Abyssal plane due to Abenthy’s meddling, and something is specifically coming to this sanctum, though he cannot tell what. They are running out of time to find the Inevitable. Lhu-Ee also thinks he knows where the Inevitable might be, however. He is guessing it lies trapped in the rooms beyond the Sanctum, the place where Haggemoth set his final project, his great scales.

Getting to the scales presents one final obstacle. The doors to Haggemoth’s scale room are broken and blocked by fallen rubble. Lhu Ee says he knows a way past, but it is very dangerous.

He leads the PCs to a small room full of paints, where long ago Karina found and took a jar of Marvelous Pigments. She didn’t fully understand the significance of the paints back then. Lhu Ee shows this new group of adventurers the full power of them, power that has been amplified by Haggemoth’s tinkering.

The paints are how Haggemoth has created the Mummer and Lhu Ee, and the painted worlds. Now the PCs will have to use them to traverse those worlds to enter an unfinished painting in Haggemoth’s scale room. However, to get through the worlds, they must face the Mummer.

We set this up as both a battle of wits and a battle of combative ability. One PC must stay in the real world to paint the other two into the painted world. That PC can also control the painted world, to a degree, affecting the world to try and help the PCs. This uses their Wisdom score, and the Sleight of Hand skill for proficiency. Milosh volunteers to be the painter. Carrick and Imoaza sit by a wall and Lhu Ee tells them to try and clear their mind of any thoughts. He says this may feel a little weird. Then he begins to instruct Milosh on how to paint, telling him that, despite what he might think, closing his eyes might be a good idea, too.

“You need to picture them in your mind,” Lhu Ee tells him, “before you can paint them on the canvas.”

Carrick felt like his skin was running. He tried not to fight the sensation, though it was difficult. His mind was screaming at him that this was all wrong, that he was melting, he was drifting, he would never be whole again. Then the sensation stopped and he was no longer in the painting room. Now he was in the painted room, instead, a long stone platform arched by pillars. To either side were stars, an endless expanse of them. At the far end of the platform, in a stone throne, sat the half-grinning, half-scowling Mummer.

The air had a strange quality to it, Carrick noticed. It was thick, and he didn’t think he was breathing it so much as tasting it. It had an acrid taste, like bitter roux and rusty copper. The world was strange to look at. If he concentrated, the whole thing became oddly flat, like he was looking at a piece of paper with the background drawn on it. Yet when he moved, that background exploded into three dimensions all around him and he moved through it, each step shifting the perspective noticeably, so that moving didn’t happen as a smooth transition, but almost as if someone was rushing to keep up with him, painting the new perspective with each step he took.

Suddenly there was a twisting of the color about five feet away and Imoaza appeared. Only... she wasn’t quite Imoaza. This Imoaza was more snake like, having no legs, and a far more serpentine face. She slid across the ground on a thick body that ended in a thick, long tail. Her tongue flicked in and out of her mouth and when she opened it to speak, only hissing and haaahing came out. It was language, but the language of the Yuan Ti. Not one he spoke.

Carrick realized she carried a sword on her back. Black Razor, though it had changed, too. It was massive, shaped like a gigantic cleaver. It looked impossible to wield, but as he watched Imoaza reached behind her with a single slim arm and lifted it easily. The sword spoke in a deep husky voice, in a language totally alien to him: “Watashitachiha aku o uchi makashi, watashitachi no michi o susumimasu.”

Oops, Milosh thought, as he opened his eyes and saw what he had painted.

What follows is one of the most interesting battles we have ever run in over four years of this D&D campaign. Each turn, Carrick and Imoaza take actions, as they normally would in combat. The Mummer transforms himself into different giants to do battle against them. He also changes the setting, causing massive changes to the battlefield, like breaking apart the platform, making it slippery with ice, and causing it to run red hot with lava. Milosh can’t fight with the others, but he can try to outpaint the Mummer, redirecting his changes into something harmless or useful to the other players. In this way, we get some really interesting moments, such as...

The Mummer causes ice and sleet to rain down on the PCs. Milosh builds a tunnel over the platform to protect them.

The Mummer knocks Imoaza off the platform, but Milosh catches her by drawing a lower platform and then builds a set of stairs to rise her above the battlfield so she can launch attacks from afar at the Mummer.

The Mummer, as an Ice Giant, throws his throne at Carrick, and Milosh turns it into a wooden chair mid throw so that, while it still hits Carrick, it does far less damage.

The Mummer lifts the platform into a slide and causes a cascade of lava to rush down it, bringing him (in fire giant dreadnaught form) charging down it towards Carrick. Milosh draws a platform under Carrick, which lifts the Paladin up so that he can meet the Mummer’s charge. This is actually one of my favorite moments of the fight, and a major turning point, because Carrick uses a thunderwave against the fire giant and, normally, this would be a VERY easy save for the fire giant, because of his immensely high Con saving throw. But he actually rolls a failure and so is knocked prone by the thunderwave, at which point...

... Milosh has freezing water cascade over the lava, turning it to hard obsidian and trapping the Mummer inside. Then Carrick leaps onto the Mummer’s chest and deals him a critical blow, breaking his chest apart and exposing his heart, which he stabs viciously, ending the fight.

When the Mummer is defeated, his essence turns into a Painted Spear, a magical weapon that Carrick wields, and whose damage type he can choose before every strike. Then the PCs have to find a way out of the collapsing painted world. They do so, running through one of the paintings in the process (the painting of a dark tower they saw in the room before the demon). This is a tense moment, because in the tower they find a tear in the painted world that leads to the unfinished painting. With little time to spare, Milosh has to paint everyone through that tear, including himself (in a very strange meta moment).

The risk is high, for if Milosh fails to properly paint someone into the real world, they will simply melt into paint, destroyed forever (Carrick almost experiences this when he tries to push through the rip before Milosh has finished painting him, and watches his fingers begin to bleed away into wet paint).

They do manage to pass this section, though it is a close thing. Lhu Ee has enough power to keep his little corner of the painted world safe, and the players say that they will take him out of the sanctum and into the wider world, as a new companion, for which Lhu Ee is ecstatically grateful.  

Inevitable

And so we come to the final room of this final dungeon. When I say final, I mean that this is the last dungeon in our game, though it is not the final encounter, not by far. Still, there is a definite weight of importance settling on our party as we tackle the last room. We are drawing close to the end, and everyone knows it. Now the final pieces begin to be put into place.

This room is massive, containing the forge Haggemoth used to build his final project, his scales meant to restore his soul. The edge of the room  has no walls, instead terminating in an open pit filled with lava, with tunnels running further on into darkness. Over this pit there used to be a bridge, which in turn led to the aforementioned scales, but they were destroyed long ago by Abenthy, who then sent Haggemoth’s soul to Ia’fret. Haggemoth has since moved on from his lair, his soul freed when Ia’fret was destroyed in the final days of the Blood War. But there is one being still trapped in Haggemoth’s sanctum, an Inevtiable, trapped in stone by Haggemoth’s Golem ages ago, hundreds of years ago. The room is lit by the red hot glow of the lava lake that lies just beyond the cavern.

The Golem itself was defeated by Karina, Abenthy, and Bitterberry (in a fight the players are fond of remembering, as Karina landed several critical hits while blinded). Its husk sits at one end of the room and has decayed so that its mechanical workings are revealed. One of its arms, the group can see, resembles Milosh’ gun arm. Though he doesn’t have a gun arm anymore, Milosh can recognize the device and has a general idea of how to fire it if it can be powered up. However, he doesn’t know what it does, and he doesn’t know how to get it working.

Here, the players team up, each using their own proficiencies and backgrounds to solve this puzzle. Imoaza studies runes on the outside of the gun and determines that they will power the gun with the ability to fire a “Mud to Stone or Stone to Mud” ray. She surmises that this was probably used for excavation by Haggemoth and may be what trapped the Inevitable in the first place. Regardless, she believes it will free the Inevitable. Carrick uses his Surveyor’s knowledge to open up the gun and see how to rewire it to fire. Then the three come up with a plan.

Imoaza has the most deft fingers, so Carrick walks her through the steps of which wires need to be touching in order for the gun to work. He then prepares to unleash some of his spell power into the gun, powering the runes. Milosh is the only one strong enough to actually lift the gun and aim it, so he hefts the cannon up on his shoulder and points it at the rock, bracing himself to hold it steady.

Much can go wrong here. If Imoaza is not fast enough or precise enough, the gun will overcharge and release its magical energy in an explosion that will hit all of them. And if Milosh does not aim properly, they will miss their opportunity to free the Inevitable. Carrick only has enough spell power left for one charge, and they do not have time for a long rest, as Lhu Ee tells them time is running out... something is coming to the Sanctum through the ethereal. As if to punctuate this point, the earthquakes resume, stronger than ever...

“Now!” Carrick cried, shunting power into the gun. Imoaza held together the wires with steady hands and Milosh felt the power of the gun rushing through him, vibrating him down to his bones as it powered up. He planted his feet and gritted his teeth as the blast exploded from the gun. It was more powerful than he had expected. He could not see past the stream of power and had to trust he had aimed true. Then all at once, it was over. The gun fell silent, the ray ended, and in front of them there was a swirling of light and color and a voice which had not spoken in many centuries, a voice neither male nor female, though it leans more towards the feminine, addressed them:

"I am known as the Mardouk," it says. "I was... am... the Inevitability of Justice, though the title was taken from me and worn by another."

The Inevitable is too weak after its centuries of imprisonment to take physical form. It is only able to manifest in the dust left over from the destroyed rock, the dust glowing as it speaks and occasionally drifting together to suggest the shape of a large humanoid.

The Inevitable fills in the missing pieces of the prophecy, and explains the overview of what is going on, and what led to this point.

He tells of how he was summoned from his Hall on the plane of Mechanus by a dwarven wizard to cater to “the small matter of his soul.”

“Now,” the Inevitable says, “the one who has taken my title ushers in Chaos. Abenthy is trying to end the world, for he believes that in weighing the good against the evil, evil fills the world more, and to cleanse it is the only path forward. He does not know it, but he walks a path created for him long ago by Primus itself.”

The Inevitable tells them Chaos exists in all things. It exists even in Primus' creations. Angels, Devils, and the Ancient Dragons... they are some of Primus' earliest works, sprung from his battle with Chaos. The prophecy told of them coming together, the chaos within them allowing the power of the Abyss to be channeled directly into a single point, a single being. The prophecy also tells how to destroy it.

The Inevitable gives them a wealth of information on how the finale should play out.  Friezurazov is the throne of power in the prophecy, a leyline in the world where reality can be weakened. It radiates power, and this power is what originally drew the Stone Giant Kirazov to the land, to make the Jarlberg (the seat of that radiation) his lair. Now Abenthy has taken that seat back and from there plans the end of the world.

He also tells them what the cryptic lines mean in the prophecy. A sword is needed, a sword created from the Abyss which can fight against it (Blackrazor). The stone is needed, to summon Primus at the end, for Primus must be destroyed as well (the piece of Surveyor’s stone Carrick recovered). But what he says next chills them:

“As long as Primus exists, so too will Chaos. That is balance. For Chaos to be wiped from this world, Primus must be erased from existence as well. This is the shield: a sacrifice one of you must make. For Primus will inhabit one of you, to make him mortal, and then that person will be destroyed.”

“It could be any one of you,” the Inevitable continues, and the rock dust forms into a finger which points at each of them in turn. “Imoaza, you have the ability to see and manipulate the weave. You could weave Primus into your own soul, and thus channel him. Carrick, you wear the skin of a Surveyor, a being made of Primus’ light. You could summon his full being into your body. And Milosh, you wield a chest plate forged in Mechanus. Primus’ hands forged it, and it can contain him for a time, if needed. But the decision of who is to make this sacrifice, of who is to be the shield, is up to you.”

This knowledge overwhelms the PCs as they look from one to the other, knowing that one of them will not, cannot, survive the final battle, if they are truly to win against Abenthy.

The Inevitable lastly speaks to Milosh: “Primus' source is needed, to cleanse the chaos from the soul it has infected. I shall give this power to you, Milosh, for only you, who bears the armor of Primus, can channel it.”

With this, the Inevitable’s voice fades, as armor and a forge hammer, made by Haggemoth’s own hands, rises from the pool of lava in which the scales once stood, the armor and hammer protected from the lava by the incredible magic built into them. They fly to Milosh and he claims them, gaining incredible defensive and offensive power. Then the Inevitable channels itself into MIlosh’s chest plate, giving him the last of its power. Milosh gains an insanely powerful blast, a divine judgement that unleashes radiant energy in 60 feet around him... but which can only be used once per day and which costs a 5th level spell slot.

It is the power which can strip Chaos from a soul.

Before the PCs can spend much time contemplating their new discoveries, Lhu Ee cries out that something horrible is breaking through into their world!

As he says this, the place begins to shake as earthquakes rip through it. Ethereal tentacles push through the fabric of reality, whipping all around the players, distorting reality wherever they touch. A massive tear cuts through this plane and something else emerges into the cavern. Tearing its head through the rip in space time comes the Tarasque, the great beast last seen at the Maakengorge. It opens its maw, roars, and goes immediately for Milosh, snapping him up in its jaws.

... and that’s where we’ll end this blog post, at least in terms of its recounting the story. There is one last thing I wanted to address, and that was a question the players contemplated at the end of this session. The question was whether this plot line has been “inevitable.” Could they have let the Inevitable free all those years (2 1/2 years real time, some 100 years game time) ago? Would that have derailed this massive build up to the end game?

The answer is that none of this was set in stone (no pun intended). The ending that is coming is very much built off of their actions. Most of the game has gone like this. I have planned very little, and I don’t lock in plans until generally a session or two before we reach them. Even then, locking in is a very generous word.

Milosh’s transformation is a good example of this. I had ZERO idea that Milosh was going to shed his robotic form and return to his original one. It just fit with the moment and with what I knew about Milosh’s character from how the players has portrayed him. It was the arc Milosh was describing to me. I just described the conclusion that he was steering towards.

One thing my players point out is how well the pieces have all fit together, especially when the Inevitable points to each of them and explains how each could channel Primus. They say it feels like this was planned from the beginning. And again, I can only say that it couldn’t have been. I did not know that these three characters would even exist when we started playing this game. Even the Prophecy itself originated as a piece of throwaway description, a mural on a wall inside the Temple of the Maakengorge because a player asked me to describe the walls and I wanted something mysterious and tied in to characters they knew. From there, it just grew to fit all the pieces of the story that had been unexplained.

Same with the Surveyor and even Primus. Those plot points came about because I wanted a way to tie Carrick’s player into the game, as he was new to it and the other players already had 2 years of story under their belt. I needed to tie him very directly into the plot, so that he (and they) would see his character as being as important as they were. Thus, I threw in a detail about a clone of Carrick in the Yuan Ti Fane that they come across. I had no idea where this was going at the time, but eventually it became the plot about the Surveyor.

It’s funny, because it does really feel like the prophecy and the Surveyor have been here since the beginning. But that’s because I tied them back into the Jade Statue, and the Sunken Temple, which was literally how we began the game.

Not planned, but always looking to be tied in. Details of the game were never forgotten, in large part because of these blogs. They, more than anything, have been the tool that has allowed me to tie so much together in the end.

That it has all worked out to feel “inevitable�� is something I take as a huge compliment, a sign that I was able to weave the threads the players gave me into something coherent; something that was better than a predetermined story, because its pieces belonged, inexorably, to them.

We’ll get closer to the conclusion next time, as the game enters a very interesting phase, with some new mechanics to represent our epic level of play (they players are all level 19 now).

[kote-the-inn-keeper]

                                         - 3. Travel and Finding Ways - 

The day had been kinder to travel than anyone had anticipated. It lightly rained on and off, heavy clouds rolling in and darkening the sky slowly. The roads weren’t too bad, slowly growing soft from the rain an gathering puddled in long eroded paths of wheels and other pot holes that had found their way one way or another. Nothing but woods on one side, and open field on the other, it was peaceful. Most noise came from the horses and oxen pulling the caravans, wheels creaking and rattling the wood around with their inner contents.

It was all probably much nicer to me because I wasn’t walking, instead, sitting next to Kvothe as he kept the train of caravans moving by leading the way. I was bundled up in a thick quilt, due to his mother refusing to let me sit with only my cloak. There were no complaints to this, of course, it was much more comfortable being warm than damp and cold. Of course, it was all made better to breath since dust wasn’t being kicked up, or at least nicer than smelling work animal and dirt together in one.

I watched Kvothe talk to people as they walked along side the caravan, holding long conversations with just about anything he was prompted. Weather, animal care, where they would set up in the next town to preform, and a few other topics I vaguely listened in on. Just sitting and listening taught me a lot about him and how he viewed those around. I lost count of how many times he smiled, how many times he made jokes and started up banter. He didn’t seem to regret taking up his families name, enjoying it to the fullest. It was a strange site, almost. Considering most people were resentful towards their parents and taking up the family job or line, or people were miserable in doing something they were forced into doing due to expectation. 

“Do you only act?” I asked, once the person he had been talking too finally walked off. Adjusting the quilt around my shoulders, he looked to him. “I mean, you do acting here, right? Is that all you do though?”

Kvothe looked to me with a small smile. “No, we have other types of performers. Knife throwers, ‘magicians’, musicians, entertainers, and some others. Acting is among them, yes.”

“I mean you -- as in yourself.” I replied, “Some people were asking what you were going to preform this time...”

He hummed in thought. “Well, in that case, no. I act and play music. But that’s about all I’m good for. Both of which I learned from my parents. My father taught me how to memorize long chunks of text and how to give a proper emotion on stage. My mother taught me to sing and find notes from a young age.”

That was more than I ever could do. “Oh.”

“Were you expecting more?”

“N-No! No!” He replied swiftly, shaking my head. “I... It’s really impressive.”

“But?”

“...Pardon?” I asked back, confused.

“You stopped. Usually when someone stops speaking so much there is a ‘but’ to follow. Like they are planning to say more. I don’t think ‘impressive’ was all you had to say on that subject.” Kvothe explained, raising a brow to me. “You may not be one full of words, but I can tell on face you have a lot to say.”

I sighed softly, “I didn’t have anything else to properly add. No but about it, I do think it’s really impressive. And I think it’s really sweet that you would take on something like this with your family. I’m just a little taken back by it, that’s all.”

“Okay, now I have to ask. Pardon?” He asked back, smiling and giving a bit of a chuckle. “Why would you be so surprised at something like me taking up acting?”

I shook my head softly, “It’s not the acting. It’s taking up your... tradition, I suppose is the word. Family tradition, probably is a better word. I’ve never seen someone so eager to do so and to lead anything in my whole life. But, you seem content; happy even. You don’t seem like you want to be anywhere else or do something else... I’ve just come to know people who have traditional expectations on them grow to resent and hate whatever it is they are ‘supposed’ to do.”

Kvothe looked ahead for a moment, before looking back to me. “I don’t think I ever hated the idea of joining my parents one day with the troupe. I always wanted too, so maybe that could be it. But, I also think I don’t mind and wanted to do this because they never really forced me into anything. They never told me I had to take over one day, or told me I had to act and play music. No one forced me too. They just let me do what I wanted and supported me in whatever I chose. I had influences around, of course. People played music around me, so I wanted to learn to play music. People acted, so I wanted to learn to act. Of course I had to help out and do things, but there were no serious expectations placed on me. Everything was for fun, for the joy of it all, just because.

“My parents let me learn and grow at my own pace; which was a bit quicker than most. An old friend, Abenthy, came across our caravan one time when I was a young boy. He ended up staying for a long while, teaching me about alchemy and identifying plants and things people consider ‘magic’. He taught me a lot of interesting and new skills; all of which I was apparently very fast at learning. Abenthy eventually offered for me to go to a place where I could practice such skills and work my mind to it’s full potential. The University - such a bland name for a place where they were all supposed to be rather great at naming.

“Of course, my parents weren’t all to thrilled to send their fifteen year old off half way across the map to go learn alone. But, it was what I really wanted to do. So in the end they let me. I staid there for... three, four years maybe. Then I ventured around on my own and met strange people. In the end, I came back home though. I just brought back new skills and stories to tell.” 

I watched him as he told me more about his life, amazed. He went to The University? He went and didn’t even talk about it like it was something amazing? Even I knew young people couldn’t get it; or anyone who wasn’t worth at least half a talent. I was only just eligible to get in and he went at fifteen! Hearing he had ventured around and went on adventures was almost embarrassing to myself. What great things had I done in my life so far that Kvothe had done in his teenage years? Nothing comparable to all that. He was so casual speaking about all the wonder he had experienced in his life... it made me slightly jealous.

“To answer your question in short: I wanted to do this and wasn’t forced with expectations to. While it was kind of assumed I would one day, the idea was never pressed into me.” Kvothe re-iterated, seeming pleased with his shorter version. There was a long pause before he spoke again. “And what of you? Were you pressed for something you didn’t want to do?”

I looked up and over to Kvothe swiftly, “Ah? Me? I, well, um...” I fumbled with my words, trying to grasp the correct ones quickly. “No, not really. I... Well, you see...”

Kvothe held up a hand, “Easy, easy. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want too. It’s fine. Don’t force yourself, Mouse.”

“S...Sorry. I wasn’t expecting a question, that’s all.” I sighed slowly, calming down and trying to think of how to phrase myself. “No, I wasn’t expected to do anything like that. I don’t really have family traditions... Never have. Everyone kind of did whatever they wanted as work.”

“Not why you left then?”

“No, not fully.” I admitted, shaking my head. “My family had made kind of a staple in black-smithing and horse care. I wasn’t ever strong enough to throw a hammer about and make things, and too nervous and spooked to work with horses well. It was the worst when they two were put together, honestly. But, it wasn’t why I left. Just some of it.”

Kvothe nodded, looking like he wanted to ask for the reason why, but never pressed. “I see. Well, good thing we already have people to care for the horses and oxen! And we go to local smiths for what we need, or tinkers. Nothing you have to do, Mouse.” He offered another kind smile to me. 

I smiled back softly, “Yeah... good news for me... Um, you mentioned going to the University and having someone teach you stuff.”

“Abenthy.” He reminded.

“Right. Abenthy taught you... stuff. What kind of stuff? What did you go to that place for? I’ve heard of it, but never been myself.” I buried my face into the quilt a bit more, cold wind whipping through and chilling my nose too much for comfort.

“He was taught sympathy!” Bast chirped, hopping up onto the side of where I was sitting. “Scoot over, I can’t ft with you taking up so much space.” He complained, moving me before I could even look at him fully.

Squished between both men, I huffed in agitation. So much for being comfortable. 

“Well hello to you as well, Bast.” Kvothe replied. “Get bored of walking?”

“There’s nothing to pick up off the sides of these roads. not even nice stones. Which is a pity, because now we have to buy some supplies in the next town.” Bast complained, making himself comfortable. Well, as comfortable as three people could be where normally one was supposed to sit. He pushed my blanket out from under himself a bit, looking confused for a moment as to why I was so bundled up.

Kvothe rolled his eyes, “As we always do. Anyway, to answer your question, Mouse, yes. He taught me sympathy and I went to the university to expand that knowledge among other like things.”

I ‘accidentally’ elbowed Bast as he tried to scoot me around more, narrowing my eyes as I had to try and find a more comfortable position to sit in again. “Sympathy? Like the emotion?”

Both men laughed at me, making my face burn red.

“No, no. Not that kind of sympathy. The sympathy I went off to learn is energy manipulation. It requires a lot of focus and understanding how things connect to one another for better results.” Kvothe explained. “A lot of people call it pure magic, but, it’s all relative and has bases in science. Some things work easier than another together, and others don’t work at all.”

“What can you do with it?” I asked, not even sure what it all meant in the first place.

“I can show you some time. Not right now though, I’m kind of driving.” Kvothe chuckled, looking over me to Bast. “And he won’t show you because he’s lazy and refuses to study.”

Bast looked appalled, before embarrassed he would be called out in such a manner in front of someone else. “I am too studying...” 

I laughed, hiding my smile behind a quilt covered hand. 

“I’m sure you are.” Kvothe replied sarcastically. “Studying very hard all day every day. Such as right now. Reading so in depth and with great vigor, oh, how no one could pull you from such concentration!!” 

I laughed more, watching as Bast grew more embarrassed and pouted. I couldn’t help myself, it was a priceless interaction. Not to mention seeing Bast deflate so quickly from his ‘mysterious’ and ‘sly’ ways was more entertaining than anything else.

“Reshi, please.” Bast whined, crossing his arms. “I get it, I get it. I’ll study more, okay? I’ll go do it in a minute.”

“Should I have Mouse read to you instead?” Kvothe pestered more.

“Reshi!”

Kvothe joined in with my laughter, but he apologized. “Sorry, sorry. That was a bit too far. I’ll make it up to you later, alright? But go away, you’re taking up too much space here and I’m about to fall off.” 

Bast got up and narrowed his bright blue eyes at the both of us, a look that said we had something coming our way very soon. “You better.” With that, Bast hopped down and tot he ground easily, falling behind our sight to possibly go and study as he was ‘harrassed’ into doing.

After a little while of silence, I felt that I had to say something. Just anything from the quiet creaking of the caravans and the soft thunder rolling in the dim sky. “Hey... Kvothe...”

“Yes, Mouse?”

“...Thank you. Thank you for allowing me to travel with you to the next town. I don’t think I’ve laughed or been so comfortable in a long time... I forgot what it was like. Thank you.” I said softly, huddling in my quilt more and looking down.

Kvothe carefully placed a hand on the top of my head, gentle to not startle me. “Don’t worry about it. Thank you for joining us for however long you will. We are one family, and one family keeps together.” 

[zippdementia]

Part 36 Alignment May Vary: Finale

Thirty six posts and over a year ago we began this crazy romp with three prisoners on a ship in the middle of the chilly Moon Sea. Now we come full circle. Karina has found and forgiven her mentor, Tyrion has cured his affliction, and their new companion Traki is about to become wrapped up forever in the machinations of the red hand...

Why did he join this group of travelers? The question hits Traki like a stone. The night before agreeing to follow the Tiefling into the mind of her mentor, he had had a vision, a true vision, the first one since he had crashed on the accursed island. In it, he had once again seen his brother Falco, who told him that the elves of his homeland had felt his presence as soon as he had left Rori Rama.

“I am coming home to you, brother,” Traki had said. But Falco had told him that no home was left. Dragons had come to the woods. Dragons had pierced the secret places, found the valley, burned it and anyone who dared to stand against them. Nor had the dragons been alone: A goblinesque creature had ridden one, a great Black Beast of a Dragon, and on his chest had been painted the symbol of a Red Hand. Home, which had existed peacefully in the forest valley for thousands of years, was gone.

The Red Hand... Traki had seen the Hand clawing at the earth in fevered visions, had seen it spreading fire across the trees and forests of the world. He had also seen three figures, indistinct in their features, stride towards the hand, bringing with them light. Three figures he had seen, and three he had found, two Tieflings and a halfing. Inauspicious heroes to be sure, but he had told his brother he could not return to him yet, that he had to go chasing the Hand. And then he had followed the female Tiefling into her dream world. The Gods had repaid his gumption by taking his eyes.

But they will not take my world.

Determined, Traki told himself he would train; every day until the exhaustion tore him into sleep he would train to learn to rely on his other senses. Blindness would not be a disability but a boon. He would not be distracted from his purpose. His enemies could hide their bodies but not their smells, their breathing, their sighs of fear as he came for them. He would follow the three of his vision and the Red Hand would fall.

First, though, there are bills to pay.

Returning the Favor

Clem and the other crew members of Twyin’s Revenge approach the companions shortly after their return from Rayden’s mind.

“There is the issue of payment,” Clem explains as they all gather. “Our crew put nearly a year of their lives into this and expected 50% of the treasure in return, as Abenthy promised Captain Krisp. We are guessing that treasure doesn’t exist...”

Clem and the crew end up demanding several things: all of the party’s gold, the ship Tywin’s Revenge, and the eye of Callax from Karina. The party is willing to give up the ship, but they are not happy about the gold and Karina refuses to give up her most precious item, so a bartering ensues. It becomes heated once, when Tyrion casts Hold Person on Clem, but quickly the party realizes they will never make it back to civilzation on their own. The crew has them in a bind.

Ultimately they settle on giving up their masterwork weapons for resale, as well as several magical items—most prominent among them Haggemoth’s Band of Intellect and Belt of Defence, Tyrion’s Ioun Stone, and Karina’s Elven Chainmail. They are hard bargains, but as the crew puts it, they were owed much much more.

It is a sullen party, thus, that makes it way back to Ottoman Docks. Rayden and Xaviee depart at the Desert Island of Thud along the way, Rayden to await Karina’s return here (she still has to claim the portion of the land that the Fuzwah of Thud gifted her) and then assist her in whatever she decides to do, and Xaviee to catch a ship back to the Elsir Vale.

“Better men than I took on this quest and did not survive,” Xaviee tells them. “I can only imagine that the gods are not done with me yet. But I also know my path no longer matches your own. Abenthy showed me that. If I see him... well, best not to dwell on it. I will return to my homeland and prepare to finish what Twyin started.”

His parting is bittersweet. He leaves a friend, but a distant one, hurt deeply by Abenthy’s turn to his demonic father.

The group arrives at Ottoman’s dock in a late afternoon turned to night by a building storm. They make their way past the docks and Rose’s old tavern (now seemingly a gambling hall) and arrive at Zennatos door. Karina pauses here. It is almost too painful to open that door. The last time she did, Abenthy was here, and Tywin with his smarmy smile and callous manner. Both gone now. No, Abenthy is not gone, only changed forever. The thought comes as she gathers her resolve and pushes her way inside.

And finds herself staring into Abenthy’s cool eyes.

“Karina. I thought we might meet here. I was just explaining to Zennatos what must happen next, and why.”

Zennatos and Abenthy sit in the crowded sitting room, facing each other from the depths of large plush armchairs. Zennatos clutches a cup of tea like it is a magic shield of protection, while Abenthy sits calmly, unmoving as a statue except for the slight turn of the head he gives to look at Karina. His skin is like a statue’s as well, deathly pale, though with a strange dullness to it. His eyes, too, once so bright, are now strangely dead. He has lost his shine.

His life. Karina thinks. He is drifting away from all that made him cherish life.

Tyrion’s thoughts are more direct: I will kill this bastard. He had not forgotten the power lost when Haggemoth’s scales were destroyed, nor the way Abenthy had blithely brushed off his attacks afterwards. It was past time for a rematch.

Traki, on the other hand, sees nothing but feels the tension in the room and decides to leave well enough alone, at least for the time being. He says nothing but listens intently as Abenthy begins to explain why Zennatos must die.

“He stole the book,” Abenthy says. “And that in turn led to death and destruction for everyone. The people of Friezorazov, enslaved now by the Giant. The paladins of the monastery, dead by our hands.”

“The Desert Island of Thud,” Tyrion shoots back. “Saved by us.”

Abenthy stared at him. “One good deed does not erase the bad.”

“And one bad deed does not erase the good,” Karina counters. “This is wrong, Abenthy. It is not for you to punish Zennatos or judge him.”

“It is for me. I am the inevitability of Justice. There is no other more able to judge.”

Karina moves suddenly and stands in front of Zennatos. Quickly, Verrick moves to her side. Abenthy looks at him, and there is a touch of sadness in his eyes.

“I see you have reunited with your lover.”

“He lives, yes.”

“Move aside, Karina. I don’t wish to hurt you. I won’t hurt you.”

“And you won’t hurt Zennatos, either.”

“That is where you are wrong.”

“Can we talk more about bringing rain to the desert?” Zennatos chimes in with a quavering voice. “That was a good topic. All the good that came from my quest, yes?”

Wings burst then from Abenthy’s back, great skeletal wings, and his eyes glow a dark red. Fear washes over the room and Zennatos yelps in fright. Karina barely manages to contain herself in time to activate her cloak of Darkness. Abenthy’s fearful visage is lost in darkness. She reaches out through it, touches Abenthy’s face. “Come back to us. Don’t choose the path of your father. Don’t do this.”

“I must,” he says, and flings her aside.

What follows here is a surprisingly even fight. Abenthy is level 10 at this point, to Karina and co’s 7 (almost 8). But he refuses to hurt them, while they can barely hope to hit him with his AC of 24 (magical items boost it). Tyrion is full of rage, attacking Abenthy over and over to little effect until he finally switches to picking away at his health with psychic damage, for one or two or three points of health at a time. On top of this, everyone is rolling at disadvantage for the darkness and so consistently ends up with less than 10′s on their dice, except for Traki who keeps punching Abenthy in the back of the head, Karina who rolls her usual natural 20s, and myself who doesn’t roll much lower than 17 for Zennatos. This leads to some very amusing situations where Abenthy continually tries to get past Karina and repeatedly gets overwhelmed by her paltry 8 (or somewhere around there) Strength and finds himself on the ground with Karina pinning him... only to shove her off and start again. Meanwhile, Zennatos is blitzing through the darkness like an idiot savant, eventually getting the idea to smash a window to make Abenthy think he has fled.

It is not quite the dramatic encounter I had hoped for, but it does speak nicely to the conflicts plaguing the party. No one really is invested in hurting each other, except Tyrion who doesn’t yet have the power to go it alone, and so the battle devolves into a depressing and uncomfortable stalemate. Karina does try to talk Abenthy out of his path by insisting that Zennatos should spend his life in attonement rather than pay for his crimes by wasting that life, and Abenthy’s player allows her one roll to try and persuade him, but as luck would have it, it’s the one low roll of the night for her, and the attempt badly fails, only strengthening Abenthy’s resolve.

In truth, I had expected that Abenthy and Tyrion would clash like Titans and Karina would get caught in the crossfire, or else Zennatos would actually be murdered before the party could stop Abenthy. Instead seeing the stalemate continue on, I decide to step in and move us along to the next part of the finale...

I Hear Bells a Ringin’

Alarm bells begin to sound all over the city. Traki, having some background as a sailor, knows the sound and what this particular peal means.

“Pirates,” he says. “Marauders attacking the docks.”

“It is the Red Hand,” Karina says from the darkness.

“The Red Hand?” Traki’s heart leaps at the words. The prophecies were true!

“Reeves,” agrees Verrick. “He has followed us around the seas and back again.”

“The pirate captain who murdered your companions?” Tyrion asks.

Shando. Targaryen. Their names plague Karina’s thoughts. “Do you hear that, Abenthy?” she asks. “It is the men who murdered the Butcher of Skagos, who worked with Rose to kidnap women and enslave them to her will and the will of Mordekai.” Whoose armor you now wear. “There is your evil. Will you fight it? Will you bring them justice?”

The silence stretches on.

“Zennatos has fled,” Abenthy says at last. “Justice will find him, but today my strength is needed elsewhere. Yes. I will fight.”

Only then does Karina let her darkness fall away. She is face to face with Abenthy again. Their eyes meet. The look that passes between them carries the weight of lost possibilities. And then he turns and is soon gone, sweeping from the room like a light extinguished.

Zennatos momentarily emerges from his hiding and stammers out a thanks, begging Karina to continue protecting him. She tells him that where she is going it is not safe. He needs to flee this place, disguise himself, and above all do good. Only attonement, she believes, will save him from Abenthy’s justice. Zennatos agrees, handing the team over 300 gold pieces to thank them for their efforts.

The players then move out into the storm. The city is alive with shouts and screams, the noise carrying over the sound of the clanging bells. In the distance a red glow signifies fire—it looks to be coming from the Lord’s fortress. They move down the street towards the docks, stopping to fight ten Ratzotto pirates and their captain in the city center, dispatching them fairly easily (proving how far they have come in the course of this adventure). By the time they reach the docks, the storm has turned into a gale, sending waves crashing over the docks, where men are fighting to the death. From one dock three pirate ships have landed and men are swarming towards the city, but there, too, the companions can see the towering figure of Abenthy, cutting down enemies as they come at him, taking on eight pirates at once, rallying the city guard to move in and handle the others. Soon, he is lost in the mayhem.

The companions head another direction, towards a ship Karina knows well. The Audacity sits at dock as she remembers it, a low sleek pirate schooner, built for speed and stealth. It is not bothering with stealth now. It has crashed itself into the docks and secured itself with grappling hooks. It rides the storm easy, as if the storm is its horse. The deck has more than a half dozen pirates on it, though these are little like the Ratzotto’s the fought in the square earlier. Months ago, Karina watched as her former friend Targaryen murdered her new ally, General Tywin of the Elsir Vale, in a drowned tower while they tried to rescue Targaryen’s sister. Targaryen and the pirates that assisted him had been changed by the power of some God of the deep, morphed into beings that seemed more at home in the ocean than on land. These pirates now reflect that same change. Some are covered in barnacles. One has blue skin. Most grin to show razor sharp teeth and some even have claws instead of fingers. And at their head stands Captain Reeves Testain, his black beard encrusted with the salt of the sea and interwoven with stalks of seaweed. His jacket is open, leaving his chest bare, his pale skin slick with rain that seems not to bother him. His smile is manic, his stare one from beyond the grave. He sees Karina...

... but before anything else can happen, Twyin’s Revenge, manned by Clem and the rest of the crew, crashes into the Audacity, knocking several of the pirates into the sea. Crossbow bolts fire across the deck, taking down several more pirates. For a moment, the battle seems won, but then the sea opens up underneath Twyin’s Revenge and a monstrous mass of tentacles wrap themselves around the Ghost Ship. Clem and the others are dragged away from the Audacity, the men cutting desperately at tentacles as thick as masts. Reeves turns his attention back to the companions and gestures, and five pirates, four men and one woman, leap off the Audacity to meet the companions on the final dock leading to the Audacity, the final bridge between the players and their destiny.

This is a fun fight. I use enemies from the Princes of Apocalypse campaign, two reavers, two dark tide knights, and one fathomer. It’s a bit of a test, too, to see how the players will do against more varied enemies and groups in the upcoming campaign. Tomb of Haggemoth has a lot of Boss Monsters (tm) and Red Hand of Doom is much more about a mixture of enemies with different classes and abilities supporting each other to make combat harder and more tactical. I want to see how that plays out here.

It is a tough fight. The reavers go down pretty quick, with Karina “leaving her mark” on one of them in the form of a bolt through the eye. But their point is to blockade, not kill: they block the bridge long enough to give the fathomer time to cast spells from afar without being harried, and he rolls three critical strikes, severely cutting down the health of Tyrion. When Tyrion faces off against one of the knights, he is quick to be knocked unconscious. And then things get interesting.

Seeing that the blind monk is battling effectively despite his condition and that Karina is a good shot, the knight tries a different strategy. He kicks Tyrion’s unconscious body off the dock and into the sea, forcing the players to split up if they wish to save him. Karina takes the bait, leaping off into the ocean and making some very harrowing spot checks to see if she can find and save Tyrion. Left alone to face both the knight and the sorcerous fathomer, Traki is soon overwhelmed on the dock and goes down.

Now, as far as the enemies know, they have won the fight. The fathomer starts walking the dock to check the waters, make sure the heroes are down. The dark tide knight goes to work on searching Traki’s body--they are pirates after all, and this gives the players a turn to make a plan before the knight tosses HIS body into the sea as well. The players take the opportunity: Karina, having pulled Tyrion to shore without being seen, revives him and together they launch a sneak attack against the knight, killing him.

Left alone to face three heroes, the fathomer changes tactics, turning into his serpent form and trying to drag Traki into the sea to drown him. Traki avoids this attack and the fathomer tries one more desperate ploy: turning invisible, he dives into the sea and waits for the players to cross the bridge. Then he gets behind them and sneak attacks Karina with vampiric touch, draining her health and restoring his own. It doesn’t save him, Karina is quick to reverse the hold and cut him in half with her scimitar, but it leaves them all shaken and injured for the final battle, out of potions and running low on spells.

And it does illustrate that the players are ready to face the Red Horde and gives me some direction on making some final touch ups to the Red Hand campaign before we begin. But first, there is an old foe to face...

The Final Battle

“The little bird returns!” though he stood on the prow of Audacity in the midst of the storm, the companions could hear Reeves Testain as if he stood directly next to them. For Traki the experience was the most surreal as he could not see the man to show the lie.

“I have followed you across the oceans, girl,” Reeves continues. “I used my scrying magic to see your path. I lost you once, recently, when you went to an island where I could not follow. But now I have you again. And I see you have hatched more companions, girl. Do they know how your other friends died? If they did, perhaps they would not be so eager to stay with you.“ He spotted Verrick standing next to her. “And you have brought your manservant, too. Traitor! You betrayed the Many Headed Goddess. But her power has not stopped growing. I will murder you, destroy this pitiful town, and then move on to the East, where she amasses a great army. The Red Horde shall fall upon the land like locusts. The Vale shall be the first to fall, but not the last.”

“You speak of the Red Hand!” Traki called out. “But I have seen another prophecy. I have seen their fall.”

“If you have seen anything it is because the Queen willed it. She shows you hope in order to sweeten the victory when she takes it away from you.”

“This is the one who killed the others? Who killed your friends?” Tyrion asked.

Karina nodded. “I cannot ask you to join in this fight,” she said.

“... and you won’t have to,” Verrick answered. “Let us put an end to this.”

And so the three climbed on board the Audacity and found its lord waiting for them. Reeves attacks viciously using magical ice storms to halt the heroes and hold person to freeze them in place. Tyrion takes him on directly but even his magical axe seems only to be partially effective. Meanwhile, Reeves wields a relic of the deep, the ancient trident Drown, pulled from the tower of the Drowned God in his quest for power.

There is another one here, as well. Behind Reeves, huddled by the prow, is a young girl who Karina alone recognizes: it is Jade, Targaryen’s sister. She is in a kind of trance and Karina correctly guesses she is controlling the tentacled beast attacking Clem and his men. However, all attempts to attack the girl fail as a powerful psychic shield deflects all arrows and Reeves is between her and the other party members. The same shield seems to protect him, as Karina’s attempts to loose arrows at him all end with the arrow stopping feet from him and falling harmlessly to the ground. She even tries a silver arrow but this fails just the same.

This fight is meant to be very hard, possibly outside of the player’s ability to handle. The reason is that there is another way to fight Reeves rather than head on, a way that exists because Karina managed to reclaim the Undersea Effigy back at the Tower of the Drowned God. The effigy begins calling to her from within her bag of holding. It wants her to touch it, to use its power. Doing so will allow Karina to engage in a battle of wills with Jade over control for the Kraken.

Unfortunately, Karina doesn’t trust the voices! This almost leads to the annihilation of the party but for once I step in with a pretty heavy hand to push Karina towards using the effigy. When Reeves freezes her in place with his hold person and prepares to slaughter the rest of the party, she finds that only her right arm can move, and then only towards the bag of holding. Yes, it is remarkably heavy handed, but I think it’s okay considering this is the final fight and a very big moment. Looking back on the campaign as a whole, if I had given the players a book or scroll earlier, detailing how “the many headed statue controlled the denizens of the deep,” the forced hand could have been avoided, but honestly this final battle was not fully developed until a few sessions back and I didn’t see a place to squeeze that in. So instead we get forces outside of Karina’s control taking over a little. Which, considering that part of the campaign has been about otherworldly powers, I think works out just fine.

Karina reaches inside the bag, knowing what she is searching for, reaching for it  despite her fears, despite promising herself that this relic would never again see the light of day. Then her hand closes around cold jade stone and the world disappears.

She is huge. She is powerful. She is hungry. She is ancient. She opens her jaws and the ocean pours in. She stretches and her tentacles break bones, crush wood, move waves. She focuses and sees the ship at the docks, the figures fighting on it, and the one who she must kill.

NO.

The voice is an intrusion, a blot on her mind.

I RULE THIS CREATURE. YOU MUST LEAVE.

Karina. Her name is Karina. But the voice, the voice was not her voice. It was...

LEAVE NOW OR I WILL HURT YOU.

... Jade. The little girl. The psychic. Karina pulls herself free for a moment from the Krake Spawn’s mind and sees the girl, or at least feels her hovering nearby, her power palpable but weak, spent, drained.

“I can overpower you,” Karina says. And then she dives back inside the Kraken.

This is a battle of wills, and really the final battle of the campaign. I don’t pull any punches here. For every roll Karina wins versus Jade, she will get to make an attack on Captain Reeves for massive damage, maybe enough to turn the tide, maybe not. The real power comes if she can make three in a row.

And by the gods, that is exactly what she does. This is a huge accomplishment, considering that Jade rolls Will at +2 and Karina at -1 (I think... it’s low, anyway). But Karina, staying true to her character, rolls well in a crisis and she pulls out that natural 20 as the final roll of the campaign, kicking Jade from the creature’s mind and bringing its full power to bear on Captain Reeves.

Tyrion leaps back as the tentacles smash into the deck of the Audacity. Reeves throws his hands up, blocking his face and eyes from the splintering of wood. Before he can lower them again, he is wrapped in the thick wet tentacles of the Krake Spawn, the beast lifting him high in the air. Reeves fights for a moment, but the tentacles tighten and he all but disappears beneath their slimy folds. Then the sea opens up and a massive maw fills the space where water once was. Reeves calls out a final condemnation of the party: “My Queen will revive my Soul! All that die in her service will walk again! She will reap this world! She will—”

He does not get to finish. Reeves is dropped into the maw and disappears amidst rows and rows of razor sharp teeth as the jaws close and the creature retreats back into the depths, hopefully never to be seen again.

Aftermath

With the Kraken defeated and Reeves dead, the rest of the pirates are easily routed, without the players’ help. Karina comes back to herself to find the Jade statue destroyed, a true signifier of the end of the campaign as the first adventure we had was retrieving the thing from the depths of the Moonsea, over thirty sessions ago. Jade (the girl, not the statue) comes back to herself as well and thanks Karina for saving her mind from the creature of the deep. “Had you not pushed me from it, I would have been lost to the deep forever.” She asks after Targaryen but all Karina has the heart to tell her is that he is at peace. The lie makes her think of Abenthy, who condemned Targaryen’s soul to his father’s hell, and she feels a great pang in her heart. I lost him too, she thinks. Maybe not to death’s embrace, but he is gone all the same.

They do not find the Aasimir after the battle. He has disappeared, they assume to hunt his quarry. Zennatos, too, has disappeared, they know not where to, though Karina hopes it is to take her advice and do as much good as possible. Whether it will appease Abenthy she knows not, but it is worth trying.

With the battle finished, the companions look out upon the town of Ottoman’s dock. The lord’s manor is aflame and it is said he was murdered by pirates in a raid on his fortress. The town has much rebuilding to do, a new leader to elect. But for once, this is not a task the companions feel they need to take on. They have their own paths to follow.

Karina, the Seeker of Callax, says farewell to the group. “I have had enough adventuring for one lifetime,” she tells them. “I have found the truth I sought and avenged the ones who I called friends. Something tells me this is where I should stop. I have a reward to collect and a school to build. Traki, I hope you find what you are seeking. Tyrion, do not lose your music.” And with those words of parting, she and Verrick leave, catching one final ride on Tywin’s Revenge as Clem and the crew take them back to Thudd, where she collects her reward from the Fuzwah, the promised expanse of land to do with what she pleases. Aided by the Fuzwah, she builds a school here to teach adventurers how to defend themselves against the dangers of the world. In return, they give the school a cut of their treasures from their hunts. It is a small percentage, but it adds up, and eventually the school grows in power and reputation. Karina never forgets Abenthy’s journey, and she picks her students with an extremely critical eye, never wanting to turn out a student who starts on the path of good, but falls to their own search for justice. She uses the spell book of Haggemoth and his histories to aid her studies, and in doing so, feels that she is keeping alive the old dwarf’s knowledge and setting it to good. Maybe she could not save his soul in her journeys, but in this small way, perhaps she can help him offer pennace.

Jade trains at the school for a time before eventually leaving on a mission of her own: find a way to free her brother’s soul from the clutches of I’afret. Verrick and Rayden remain, growing old with Karina, being her truest guides and mentors, and ready to lift their blades again the day the Seeker of Callax ventures forth again.

Abenthy had planned to return to Thudd as well, to claim his prize and build his own school, a school of justice and punishment, but fate and his father push him onto another path. “There are men and women in this world whose hearts are pure,” his father tells him. “They are ready to follow you and be soldiers in the war which will come. You must collect them, test them. Those you find worthy make your companions. Those you find lacking, send to me.” And so Abenthy sets forth and slowly gathers an army of fanatics. Insanely loyal to him, they travel the world as mercenaries, choosing their causes as Abenthy sees fit. Under his command the group becomes known as the Inevitables, and it is said that they only serve those with just causes. Before long, their numebrs have swelled to massive size and then Abenthy turns his sights towards unfinished business with a certain giant on the isle of Friezurazov…

But these stories unfold over the course of years, and there is yet more to be told of the here and now. Traki’s prophecy tells him to head East, to find the Red Hand and stop it before it crushes the life out of the world.

“Is this a journey you intend to continue?” Traki asks Tyrion.

“My story is not yet over,” the Halfling answers. “And East is as good a direction as any. The Elsir Vale, Reeves said? I know tell of the land. Ancient place. Perhaps some old magic survives there, something worth finding.”

“Three companions are meant to fight the Hand,” Traki tells him. “But we are now only two.”

“I find these prophecies tend to work themselves out,” Tyrion says, adjusting a string on the golden harp he retrieved from Haggemoth’s tomb, the last surviving treasure of the mage dwarf’s hoard. He strums a chord as a test and smiles, pleased with the melancholy sound. “I have a feeling someone will come along.”

“What Karina said about losing your music… what did she mean by that?”

“Just the woman’s way of saying goodbye,” Tyrion says, and strums a new chord, this one as discordant to the first as the halfing’s lie was to truth. “This Red Hand thinks it is powerful. But wait till they get a load of me.”

Next session will show the start of Season 3: The Red Hand of Doom. From here on out we will be converting the Red Hand of Doom from 3.5 to 5e and each post I’ll talk a little bit about how the conversion was handled and why I made the decisions I did. With Red Hand of Doom being played every week, it seems, by some group somewhere, it will be fun to add our little oddball party to the mix. Karina’s player will be back, too, but not as the Seeker of Callax. She has retired the character to live out her days in relative peace, a just reward for her incredible survival of the massive and deadly Tomb of Haggemoth campaign. Instead, a new character will emerge to join our heroes as they make their way to the Elsir Vale and into a darkness that they do not yet fully comprehend.