Session 11 - 21DEC2024

Attendees

• Tim ✅
• Walter ✅
• Erica ✅
• Jin ✅
  
• Nick ✅
  
• Alex ❌
  

Copy/Paste Source: ✅ ❌

Recap to Current Situation

•  We go dive into some ruins and fight a big tree/undead monster. We collect a giant, sentient head and need to decide whether to bring this to the Archivist or to the Empress for more information or as proof of the Red Omen respectively.
  

Session Notes

We take a long rest at the entrance to the ruins
Then we decide to head back to a nearby village, Narfolk, where we can meet with the Council of the Few

It is a perfectly average day outside for the season

We enter the Council of the Few building and find ourselves in the Archivist's cavern like normal We present the head/helmet to Nibenay and recount our experiences to him
He picks it up and inspects it. He points out that the helmet is marked as belonging to Triginta Septum He believes that this would support our claim that the Red Omen is active once more Erica asks how this relates to the Red Omen/Bashuk Ushat The Archivist explains that the most devoted followers would relinquish their identities and become numbers The ancient writing is some kind archaic fusion of modern elvish and dwarven He asks us to try to influence her to try to renounce her old ways We decide to head out to the Empress We make our way into the capital city of Gulg

Today is a kind of warm day, 20 degrees warmer than normal

We go through some roundabout process and make our way to the Empress She dismisses almost all her attendants, like last time We present the head/helmet to the Oba

She picks up the head and inspects it, seeing the writing She hands off the head to an attendant, telling him to "take care" of it We pass on the message that she should renounce her old ways She grants us a boon:

Erica gets an empathy ability Walter gets a fortify ability Nick gets a light ability The powers we have gotten are part of "The Way"

This is a system taught by The Oba that can unlock more abilities should we want them in the future We talk with the Oba and she has convinced the forest to stop consuming villages within the empire We ask the guild of surveryors about Kaeso Crito, and nobody there knows anybody by that name Nick decides to disguise himself as Kaeso Crito and tries to bullshit his way into the department of Surveryors

As he confidently struts around the department, he tries to intimidate his way through Nobody is buying his act and they try to push him out, which reveals his illusion, and the city guard is called, one woman does seem to try to help Nick make a clean exit We are asked to leave the building This all tells us that Kaeso is not recognizable to the other employees We decide to loiter in the area and wait for this woman to leave We approach her to bring up Kaeso Crito This woman's name is Yali Erica explains the picture of why we are seeking out Kaeso Erica uses empathy to figure out that she is hungry, uncertain, fearful, but wants to be helpful She writes a bit on a piece of paper, where she has written out a meeting place outside the city walls, at midnight We follow up with Yali and meet up with her in the middle of the night outside the city She doesn't know anybody by the name of Kaeso Crito

However, there is something within her that tells her that she should remember Kaeso This is a sign that it is the Oba's will that this person should not be remembered We decide as a group to head back to the village of Narfolk to meet up with The Archivist Upon entering the building, we find ourselves in the Archivist's cavern like normal He is floating above us, surrounded by books He comes to us and we fill him in on the situation He tells us that it is safe to assume that Kaeso Crito no longer exists

Either he never existed in the first place, or was destroyed as a way to cover up her tracks He reveals that The Oba, Lalipuli, is one of his kinsmen Others include:

Andrew Pinas Hamanu/Deshay The Archivist explains that The Oba's offer of power is very real, but would come at a great cost to many others We ask The Archivist, if we are still working for him, what should be our next course of action The Archivist would prefer that we work under The Oba for some more time to help convince her to abandon her old ways We express to The Archivist that we feel like we are being used as pawns in some kind of power struggle between powerful, immortal being. It's not clear how preventing The Oba from her old ways and the Red Omen are connected In response, he starts removing bandages from himself

He is quite monstrous in appearance Some combination of a dragon and a man The Archivist and his kinsmen were once under the employ of Bashuk Ushat They used to study dragon magic It was powerful, but would suck the life force out of other things for power The end goal was to ascend to dragonhood Bashuk Ushat would ascend further than dragons, on to godhood This caused those within Nibenay's clan to turn on Bashuk Ushaat and imprison him The name Red Omen refers to dimming the sun in order to derive the power to free Bashuk Ushat The Archivist sought to eliminate this history from the world through controlling the historical record Getting the Oba to renounce her old ways would be convincing her to act selflessly for once, sacrificing herself to stop Bashuk Ushat The proposed plan of attack from The Archivist to instill a sense of mortality in the Oba is to either:

Find an artifact to remind her of the person she used to be, probably something from her past Somehow launch an attack on the Oba that is life-threatening