Session 37: Galdren, You Bastard

Summary

Diedric's healing and Lilia's Toll the Dead opened the warded door, revealing a vast cavern and a beholder made of darkness. The party slammed the door shut, and Lilia carved a warning from her coven into the floor.

They negotiated with two carrion crawlers and searched their nest for the missing half of the yin-yang, but came up empty. The half turned up inside the sick flail snail instead: Lilia diagnosed a blockage, and Glenn pressed on its belly until it retched the piece up. They fused the halves and placed the symbol in the inset between the temples, which revealed a jade figurine. The Beast they summoned from it called the party unworthy, until a hasted Tyrannosaurus Glenn bloodied it in a single round. It then bound itself to the party.

After a night underground, Octavius planeswalked the party to the edge of Arborea. There they found Navarra living as an exploring petitioner. The Grand Sensory Stone gave back her memories and brought her back to life. Navarra Murendar, now sure Galdren had sent them, demanded to be taken to him so she could kill her husband (probably not literally). Then she rode her sandstone skimmer down the waterfall as the session ended.

XP Award

200 XP for opening the warded door with life and death
500 XP for meeting The Death Tyrant and living to carve a warning about it
250 XP for parleying past the carrion crawlers
175 XP for curing the sickly flail snail
300 XP for recovering the second half of the Cycle
975 XP for handily defeating The Beast
800 XP for earning The Beast's bond
500 XP for planeswalking to the edge of Arborea, where Aquallor falls into Mithardir
Breaking the Cycle: 3000 XP for reuniting Navarra with her memories and breaking the cycle of life and death
Planar Oddity: 1500 XP for witnessing a soul and its memories rejoin, reversing the split of the Astral crossing that happens when a mortal dies
Total: 8200 XP
Current XP: 76802 XP -> 85002 XP (Level 10 -> Level 11!)
(Required for next level: 100000 XP)

Things That Happened

The Warded Door

Date: 4th of Mirtur, evening, 1372 DR
Vistra and the wolf gone, the party approached the warded stone door depicting two trees - one alive, and one dead. It also contained wardings to keep out underground creatures.
They pushed on it and said "friend" in a couple of languages. Nothing. Worth a shot.
Glenn briefly considered using his dwarven shovel.
Lilia found small finger-sized places in both the dead tree and the living one.
After some arcane theorizing, Diedric channeled a healing spell into the living side and Lilia tolled the dead on the death side.
The door scraped open as the Toll the Dead sound effect did some foreshadowing, revealing an alcove into a vast underground cavern, reminiscent of the Underdark in Faerun.

Beyond the Door

A petrified arm lay on the floor, still sleeved.
Octavius cast a Fire Bolt into the darkness, which lit dozens of eyes alongside cavern walls, along with illuminating a vast underground lake a hundred feet below.
An inverted, undead roar answered. A many-stalked ball of darkness hovered into view, a single large eye framed beneath by a maw of razorsharp black teeth. A beholder made of darkness.
The party pushed the doors shut as beams began shooting out of the creature's stalks. There was an appropriate amount of screaming.

The Coven's Warning

Borrowing Glenn's dwarven shovel, Lilia artfully carved a message into the floor before the stone door, a warning to all from her coven:
- "Danger danger. Beholder beyond. Don't be stupid."

The Crawlers' Nest

Still seeking the other half of the yin-yang symbol, the party backtracked up the temple to areas yet unexplored.
They encounted two carrion crawlers in a chamber with an underground pool.
They had an initially stand-offish conversation, asking if they knew where they could find the other half of the yin-yang. The lighter-colored crawler seemed to recognize it.
After some negotiating and currying favor for slaying The Feaster, the party convinced the crawlers to allow them to, under supervision, explore their nest in search of it.
The party explored their nest of carved hollows, with quivering eggs in green and purple slime.
Detect Magic was also employed, but found nothing of interest.
The party warned the crawlers about the beholder and backtracked to the snail impeding the path into the dead side's sleeping quarters.

The Sickly Snail

The party began a valliant charge toward the giant flail snail, who looked up as it sensed their movement. Curled up as it was, Lilia recognized that it was ill.
She diagnosed that its stomach was distended from an obstruction, and convinced it that they intended no harm.
Octavius's detect magic revealed an object with magical weavings similar to that of the other half of the yin-yang. It had likely consumed it when consuming bodies of the druids.
With Lilia's medical guidance, Glenn pressed on the snail's belly to cause it to retch.
Glenn stepped aside as a mass of orange bile exited the creature, including the darker half of the yin-yang symbol.
- Lilia promptly presto-ed the symbol to a pristine condition.
They chatted for a while, asking if it liked being a snail. It indicated it felt safe in its irisdescent shell.
Glenn joined the two halves of the yin-yang in his hands, and they fused together. He remarked it would make an interesting shield.

The Dead Side's Dormitory

The party entered the room explored by Alaundo earlier in the session -- a century-abandoned sleeping quarters composed of ancient hides on the ground.
Octavius flipped over a hide to reveal this side's journal and got to work reading the subtle and intricate worldbuilding set in place.
- The journal stereotypically described, fit for a two-digit IQ party, in feral druidic: "Let the beasts take them and us alike. We encroached on their domain and built this abomination. If we die, we did not deserve to survive -- such is the Cycle and Malar's will. I'll never release Allegon's prize from my clutches -- as he could sense it with his magics should I try to hide or bury it. The Beast is a coward's crutch and he shall not have my half. I will drink his blood from his skull."
With that exposition done, the party headed outside, to the inset between the two temples.

The Beast

Glenn placed the yin-yang symbol into the inset between the two temples.
- It glowed with a golden light and split apart, revealing an extradimensional space bearing a jade figurine of a strange lizard-like beast with wicked teeth that stood on two powerful legs, with two vestigial arms.
- Lilia recognized this as a summoning figurine.
- Octavius cast an Identify spell, confirming that it was a conjuration item, currently unbonded to any living thing, and that it may not fully function.
Reading an action to banish it, Lilia willed the warm figurine to summon.
From golden mists, a mighty beast emerged, the ground shaking as it burst forth.
It spoke: "Where are Allegon and Mellogon? They are late to the hunt."
It then noticed the state of temple, and asked how long it had been. The party guessed about a hundred years.
When asked, it said it was called The Beast.
It kicked its own figurine back into the alcove, stating the the party was not worthy of being bonded to him.

The Worthy

Glenn roared in challenge as Lilia transformed him into Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Haste spell was placed upon him. He retained his beastial aspect, with non-vestigial bear arms and legs, along with a patch of green-brown fur running down his spine.
Roaring in delight, The Beast charged Glenn.
In a single round, Glenn wrestled, downed, and tore at The Beast, bloodying it.
Approving of their might, The Beast spun its tail over the party, binding them with golden energies to the figurine.
It explained it can be summoned every moon and disappear back into the figurine, which was now cool to the touch.
Glenn stowed the two halves in the bag of holding.

A Night Underground

In the living side's sleeping quarters, the party camped underground in Diedric's tiny hut.
Date: 5th of Mirtul, morning, 1372 DR
In his sleep, Octavius saw his vision of B'ian Ch'k Ch'k. B'ian was fully clothed and awake in bed this time, grabbing a satchel hanging on a hook when the sending stones went off, mouthing a quick thank you in the rough direction of the observer.
The carrion crawlers explored the area while time passed, including tapping curiously on the hut's spherical exterior.

To the Edge of Infinity

Navarra's mask in hand and description of her location firmly in mind, Octavius drew power from his bond to the Astral Plane. Rising into the air, a five-pointed flame blossomed in his chest as he planeswalked the party.
They careened through the Blind Eternities as golden motes of light, criss-crossing stone paths visible below them, until they thundered into knee-high water.
Diedric immediately felt a presence watching him, only for it to turn its gaze.
Visible before them was the edge of an infinite ocean, its waters falling an unfathomable height to become mists extending into an infinite plane of white desert.
- They knew, from Vista and Octavius's planar knowledge, that they were on Arborea, on the edge of its second layer, Aquallor, and its third layer, Mithardir.
- Octavius knew that Mithardir was an infinite expanse of lifeless white desert and ruins, with scholars debating whether this was the abandoned prior home of the Egyptian pantheon, or a place where Animal Lords once lived before moving to the Beastlands, or a place once inhabited by titanic creatures.
- He also knew of the dual nature of its first layer, Olympus and Arvandor, never visible to each other.
The waters were shallow and warm, with schools of colorful fish swimming among coral-like structures.
On a small rocky island, surrounded by bluebells, they saw a simple wooden cabin. A woman could be hear over the roar of the waterfall, humming inside.

The Cabin

Entering the cabin, the party saw nets and satchels holding dozens of trinkets gathered by someone who clearly was an explorer. The most notable was a large disc made of runic white sandstone leaning against a wall -- and a mortar and pestle, being used to crush bluebells into a dye.
Inside, a woman in a white blouse stirred a pot of vegetable soup, the faint glow of a petitioner causing her hands to blur as the moved. She had long brown-black hair, bright blue eyes, dangling earrings, and streaks of blue in her hair. A bluebell was placed over an ear.

The Petitioner

The woman greeted the party warmly, approaching each one to get a closer look at their bestial aspects. "Such a beautiful menagerie of creatures! You must be explorers like me." She spoke in a distant voice, her eyes frequently unfocused, as is the way of petitioners.
The party explained that in another life she was called Navarra, and that they had brought her memories with them. She didn't understand, as she had always lived here, and loved the freedom to roam and explore the white sands below.
When asked by the party what the white disk was, she demonstrated, setting it on the ground. It hovered in place, and by standing on it and concentrating, she could will it to skim above the surface in any direction. It hovered over water and rotated to be parallel to small stones as she maneuevered over them.

Convergence

The party presented Navarra with the wrapped Grand Sensory Stone.
She remarked on its beauty, and untied its silk ribbon, holding the crystalline orb in both hands.
Her muscles seized, freezing her in place as she fell to her knees. Tendrils of blue light passed into her chest and neck, flowing into her eyes. At the same time, the golden glow around her burned away, streaming behind her and fading.
At the end of the process, she screamed in pain, writhing on the ground as if burning alive.
The Grand Sensory Stone fell from her hands, dramatically rolling toward the cliff's edge...
- The entire party reacted simultaneously to catch it, Octavius's clawed Mage Hand reaching it first. It was safely stowed in their Bag of Holding.

Navarra Murendar

Her screams turned to weeping, then turned to laughter in an Oscar-worthy performance. Her voice grew deeper and she spoke with a clipped Rashemi accent.
"Galdren, you bastard. I was happy." She stood, the soft glow of a petitioner gone from her body.
- It dawned on the party that they had resurrected her by reuniting her spirit with her memories. Octavius's learned mind considered that this may have just proven a viable exploit of the planar nature of souls and memory.
Diedric immediately muttered apologies at the party hurting yet another woman.
"For he sent you, did he not?"
"I am Navarra Murendar."
"How do I know you are not agents of the Red?"
Diedric explained that Galdren trusted them with knowledge of the rebellion, and was a ward of Azhar Al-Farid, and knew of his ring missing a ruby out of three.
Navarra quizzed him on what Azhar liked to collect. Diedric confirmed vials of sand from lands he visited, and she relaxed, then noticed her surroundings.
"Where am I? Gods, I remember two lives. Did I pass through Kelemvor's domain?"
The party explained the basic planar concepts involved, including that this was the edge of Poseidon's domain.
The party inquired as to what she will do.
She said for them to take her to Galdren, as she was going to kill her husband.
- Some of them men went "woah woah woah" until realizing that she wasn't being literal, probably. Lilia instinctively knew.
"Wait for a moment, I must fetch something."
She plodded through the knee-high waters toward her surface skimmer, then rode it down the waterfall as the session ended.

NPCs Encountered (or mentioned)

Navarra Murendar, the Resurrected Wife
The Beast, the Jade Tyrannosaurus
The Death Tyrant, the warded Beholder
Allegon and Mellegon, the temple's head priests (mentioned)
Galdren Murendar and Azhar Al-Farid (mentioned)
B'ian Ch'k Ch'k (in a vision)
Poseidon (his presence felt)

Memes

It's like the party celebrates National Women's Day every day!

DM Thoughts

Avoid back arcing and golden spell effects in general.
Thorax. Feral. Bone spoons. Be more human for these players please.