Shadows of Serenity

Kaikoa and Fine Branch were catching Dryali and Terrance up on Tai.  The big Silver dragonborn had been notably absent from Freelancers Tavern for the last couple days, and it turned out that Freelancers had found his missing son, who was apparently responsible for causing many deaths.  Upon finding out, Tai had withdrawn to the Temple of Serenity to meditate.

While they were still talking–Fine Branch, Dryali, and Terrance did not know Tai as well as Kaikoa did–Tai entered, looked around, and sat down.  Well, that killed the conversation.

Tai:  I want to deal with my son.
Terrance:  was this a son you cared for?
Tai:  we were separated several years ago.
Terrance:  how old was he then?
Kaikoa:  impressionable enough to join a cult, obviously
Tai <frowned>:  …late teens?  He should be full-grown now, but still young enough to be angsty.

The five Freelancers stood up, and went to Damakaios' office.  As they entered and sat in various chairs, Fine Branch's tails lashed at the wooden tankard on the edge of Damakaios' desk, but the Maneki nekomata said nothing.  The chair Tai sat in creaked ominously, and from behind his desk, the Pungarehu hanyou gave the Silver dragonborn a side-eye.

Damakaios had the mission, "Gregorio want you to stop this mysterious knight.  It's 300 eagles each."  His tone made it plain that stop meant capture or death.

Kaikoa and Fine Branch knew where to go; it was half a day's flight on relatively fast flying mounts.  Kaikoa suddenly had good reason to study Damakaios' weapons displays intently, and Fine Branch studied the tankard.  But they had just been talking to Dryali and Terrance.

Dryali:  since they said they had shadows and are ready to strike, has anything happened?
Damakaios:  have not heard of anything yet
Dryali:  i don't want to get there and have them be gone, that would be incredibly annoying.
Fine Branch:  sounds like a job for divination

The cleric of The Cat left, then returned shortly with a highly decorated glass cup.  With exaggerated care and agonizing slowness, he set the cup on the edge of Damakaios' desk, not far from the affixed wooden tankard.  He continued with the exaggerated care and agonizing slowness, culminating in shoving (actually slowly pushing) the cup off the edge of the desk.

The cup… fell just as slowly, shattering well before it hit the hardwood floor, the shards dissolving into starry sparkles and sworls.  The Cat was listening to Fine Branch, whose eyes now shone with the starfields of the southern sky.

Unusually, he spoke his question to the god out loud.  "Tai's son has, um," the Maneki nekomata started, then stopped.  "We need to find Tai's son; where are we likely to find him?"

<Narrator voice:  "Plot twist!  Second son!" I cried, and the GM rolled for this situation, but did not reveal the outcome of the roll.>

The sparkles and sworls and broken glass from the cup rose up, for all to see, and formed a stylized but recognizable (to Fine Branch and Kaikoa, anyhow) picture of the area where the commune was.

The shards disappeared as Fine Branch's eyes snapped back to normal.  "Well, yep," he announced, "We know where we're going."

Dryali rose and walked up to Fine Branch, clapping him on the shoulder.  The clerics armour glowed briefly before subsiding.  "This will sharpen your mind," Dryali told him, "if anyone attempts to disrupt you sustaining spells."  Fine Branch flicked his ears, then nodded.

The others rose, and they headed to the stables to get their mounts.  Dryali hung back, and stopped at the quartermaster to buy a pair of manacles.

The Freelancers flew towards the commune that Kaikoa and Fine Branch had located (with others) 3 days earlier.  Terrance wore a jaunty green hat as she rode Gruff, her golden eagle gryphon; Kaikoa rode his clutchmate Greedy, and the two gryphons were obviously enjoying themselves.

They arrived in the area in the early afternoon, but then it was time to decide what now?  Clearly they weren't going to exchange pleasantries with whatever heretics were at the commune and fly back to Ripa Daneo for dinner.  The Freelancers landed in the trees, a ways back from the compound, to discuss.

Fine Branch:  we should camp for the night
Kaikoa:  shock & awe!
Tai:  also
Dryali:  Tai, what do you want to do?
Terrance:  I can stealth in and scout
Kaikoa:  we can go to treeline and see what's up
Fine Branch <started>:  actually, I can use clairvoyance!

So, clairvoyance needed the caster to be closer than they were to the commune.  Before approaching, Fine Branch cast pass without trace, and then they flew low, so as not to be silhouetted above the trees along the ridge line.

Dryali observed, "Good thing Terrance–" but he got no farther, as the leather suddenly broke on one of Kaikoa's stirrups.  The saddle twisted and he fell off Greedy's back, to be caught up short by the other leg in its stirrup.  The cavalier managed not to break any bones or lose his lance, but he had to haul himself back onto Greedy's back, swearing.

The Freelancers landed in the trees; they were close enough.  Fine Branch dismounted and produced a glass eye from his pack, then lay down.  He stared at the glass eye, then in his mind's eye, envisioned what he'd seen from scrying during the previous mission as well as from their overflight.

Ten minutes later, he had a sensor he was using at the cave entrance.  Annoyingly, he could only use eyes or ears through the sensor.  The cleric relayed what he was perceiving to the others in a low, steady voice.  The view outside was familiar:  a cook fire, pells, archery butts, several practice spears.  Fine Branch turned his attention inside.  <Narrator voice:  and here, Matt rolled a nat 20 on perception.>  There were double doors, 10' wide, one of which was propped open.  Through that door, Fine Branch could see 2 exits in the back of the cave; possibly one led upwards, and one downwards.

In the cave there was a sleeping area with several bedrolls, but only two appeared to be in regular use.  Opposite those, there was a simple worship area for Te Mārie; the square pillar in the center of the round altar was tall.  Turoa was in front of the altar, meditating.

Movement caught Fine Branch's eye; the half-elf Parella came from one of the openings in the back of the cave.  From her attitude she'd just used the bathroom.  She walked up to the altar, saying something to Turoa, and bowed to the altar.  Then she turned to tidy up her bedroll as Fine Branch, horrified, couldn't help but notice the movement on the altar's square:  shadows writhing around and on top of it.

Parella walked past the sensor into the training yard, and started cleaning up.

The cleric swapped the clairvoyance to audio, to hear Turoa and Parella discussing their end goal:  The Most Placid Order of Te Mārie had a goal to destroy Haumaru, so Te Mārie can be free.  Also apparently they did not like The Cat.  Listening to them, Fine Branch concluded they probably weren't that fond of the Church of Storms either.

The other Freelancers had been silent for Fine Branch's observations, but as soon as the spell ended they let out their pent-up reactions.

Kaikoa:  so there's only 2 of them!
Terrance:  that we can see
Kaikoa:  shall we go now?
Tai:  …shadows?!
Dryali:  your son's into some bad shit!
Tai:  he is so grounded
<brief silence>
Dryali:  so.  I have this spell, vortex warp.

Dryali explained that the vortex warp spell could be used to separate the two of them, and based on that, the Freelancers made their plan.

Fine Branch cast pass without trace again, and the Freelancers crept forward.  They got within 30 yards of the practice yard, where Dryali could cast the spell, but were still amongst the trees.  They stopped there and prepared themselves, as Parella continued to gather the mess in the practice yards, stowing practice spears and such.

• Dryali created a protector eldritch cannon, which immediately bolstered everyone.
• Fine Branch ritual cast silence, encompassing everyone but himself and Dryali.
• Kaikoa, Tai, and Terrance readied their weapons.

All was ready; Dryali cast vortex warp on Parella, teleporting her into the center of the silence.  He was careful that she not have an armload of spears etc, but she was still armed with her own shield and spear and longbow.

• Tai slashed her with his magical greataxe, wounding her and slowing her down.
• Terrance slashed the half-elf with her magical scimitar.
• Kaikoa leaned in and used his lance, but she wasn't quite where he expected and he missed.

Fine Branch, mounted on Nighthawk outside the area of silence, cast toll the dead on Parella.  The only way anyone knew it was the necrosis that spread visibly along her neckline; the silence swallowed the bells.  Nighthawk stepped up and attacked her as well, beak piercing and claws slashing.  He backed off, but she was unable to attack him.

• Tai slashed the half-elf twice more with his magical greataxe, wounding her repeatedly and slowing her down.  The Silver dragonborn's face was grim and focussed, as he resisted the urge to rage.
• Terrance slashed Parella with her magical scimitar, then Gruff swiped her with his claws.  By this time Parella had gathered her wits, and parried Gruff's swipe.
  • Gruff obviously screamed like the young gryphon he was, but all was quiet as he was within the area of silence.  He struck with his beak but she moved and he missed.
• Parella, realizing from Gruff she was in an area of silence, hefted her spear and shield, then bashed Tai with her shield.  Tai, caught by an entirely unexpected type of attack, splayed out awkwardly across Spencer Thunderspark's haunches.  <Narrator voice:  David rolled a nat 1 to save against shield bash, only the saddle kept him mounted.>
  • The half-elf, seeing Tai's face closer to her own, focussed, re-centered herself, then frowned slightly at Tai.  He found his own focus lost, befuddled, and he flailed trying to get it back.
  • The warrior of Placidity turned to Terrance and bashed her with the shield, but failed to unseat the firbolg.  So, she did it again, and despite Terrance expecting it she also found herself splayed out awkwardly across Gruff's back.
• Kaikoa, unhappy at what he saw, crit Parella with the blunt of his lance to her face.  She crumpled, unconscious.
  • The cavalier pointed at Dryali, mouthed "manacles", and mimed applying them to her.
  • Then he flew forward, dismounted, and snuck towards the cave.  Except Kaikoa had forgotten there was no longer pass without trace, and he wasn't sneaky at all.
• Dryali, astounded at Kaikoa, had the protector cannon bolster everyone again (except Kaikoa and Greedy, who were both out of its range).  He dismounted and started to disarm Parella, throwing her weapons into the forest on the opposite side of them all from the compound.

Fine Branch was also astounded at Kaikoa.  He dropped the silence, and pulled out a golden reliquary shaped like maneki-neko.  He used this reiquary to summon a celestial in the form of a tall, glowing, angelic cat-girl.  The celestial appeared right next to Kaikoa, then moved up to the mouth of the cave.

• Tai was feeling very placid.  He sat up, and looked at his greataxe with bemusement.  Spencer Thundersparks hop-flew to stand next to Kaikoa.  Tai did his best to focus on the greataxe; with great effort he determined he would slash any attacker in melee range, unless it was his son.
• Darkness flowed out from the cave entrance, surrounding the opening and obscuring the walls and with view within.
• Terrance, impatient with Dryali's careful disarming, dismounted Gruff, manacled the unconscious Parella, applied a ball gag, and put her on Gruff.  She remounted with the half-elf draped across the gryphon's shoulders.
• Kaikoa ran up behind the celestial, placing it between himself and the doors within the cave.  While thus covered, he equipped his scimitar and shield.
• Dryali had the protector cannon bolster people again, although it didn't really help.  He remounted Alanya and flew up fairly high, having her be quiet and stealthy.  Peering below, he tried to make out what was moving, if anything, within the darkness.  Was it shadow or creature?  He prepared to shoot a firebolt at anything attacking out of there.
• Shadows emerged from the darkness as a swarming mass.  They took a wide berth around the celestial and all tried to touch Kaikoa's face.  It sure looked like they could fly.
  • Dryali shot one with a firebolt.  The fire really wasn't terribly effective, and Dryali swore.
  • Kaikoa swore, dodged, and used his shield, but 3 of the 5 shadows did touch his face, and he critfailed on one of them.  Each touch spread necrosis; it also reduced his hard-won common sense, until he had almost none left.
  • 4 of the shadows withdrew from Kaikoa, and he slashed at them as they withdrew.  The magical scimitar connected with one and crit, causing the thing to dissipate.

Fine Branch, with a great cry of "AZIZ!  LIGHT!" cast daylight in the cave, and the darkness dissipated.  Nighthawk hop-flew 60' towards the celestial, and the cleric cast spiritual weapon in the form of a miner's hat next to the shadows.  It struck one with force.

• The celestial turned towards the shadows, and produced a radiant mace.  She struck one of the shadows and it was dissipated by holy radiance.  She stepped forward, and struck the shadow that had been hit by the firebolt.  It too dissipated from the holy radiance.
• Tai, regaining his focus, had Spencer Thundersparks fly over to the shadows, then applied his magical greataxe, starting with the one the spiritual weapon had hit.  It dissipated under the slash, and Tai got the sense of grateful relief before it did so.
  • Tai slashed the remaining shadow but it was not at a good angle, so it did not dissipate.
  • Then Tai called out, "Turoa?  Turoa?  It's dad!  Where are you?  What's going on here?"
• Turoa twitched out of the shadows (just shadows, not magical animated antagonist shadows) to the left of the door into the cave.
  • The younger Silver dragonborn exclaimed earnestly, "If we'd been more devoted to Te Mārie, Aurora would have been fine.  I'm trying to help everyone!"
  • As Tai digested this statement with astonishment, Turoa fled out the right-hand door in the back of the cave.
• Terrance flew past the celestial and into the cave through the wide doors.  She let Parella slid to the floor off Gruff.
  • She called out to Turoa, "You can't outrun us!  Stay here and talk!"  She tried to make it sound menacing, but she was a friend of his dad's and Turoa wasn't menaced in the slightest.
• Kaikoa dashed to Turoa, then, riding the adrenaline surge, started grappling with the much bigger and younger Turoa, who twisted and broke out of the Wind sagani's grip twice.
  • Exhausted by the grappling and concerned about necrosis, Kaikoa reached within himself for a second wind, giving his body a chance to heal somewhat.
• Dryali flew in on Alanya, saw the situation, and cast web in the tunnel to ensare Kaikoa and Turoa.  Turoa evaded the web's grasp as easily as he evaded Kaikoa's.  Kaikoa was no so lucky though.
  • The protector cannon bolstered the nearby Freelancers and mounts.
• The remaining shadow tried to touch Tai's face this time, but he evaded it.

Fine Branch flew into the cave, and cast hold person on Turoa.  The Silver dragonborn froze in place as the celestial faded out.  Fine Branch had the miner's hat spiritual weapon smack the last shadow with force, and it dissipated.  Tai was close enough to be certain there was relief on its face.

Dryali let the web drop and manacled Turoa.  He cast detect magic and walked around the cave, but nothing pinged that wasn't Freelancer gear.  He did notice a bunch of weapons, which sent him back to Turoa.  Fine Branch and Terrance joined him and the three of them made sure Turoa and Parella were both disarmed and bound.  The extra weapons were arrows, a spear, a longbow, and 2 extra shields.

Tai and Kaikoa, meanwhile, checked the altar, since they knew that's where the shadows had been.  It looked like a Te Mārie, just normal, maybe the square part a little tall.  The considered it, then Kaikoa started.  "Remember the gryphon!"

They checked the lower cave; it had a small stream and potable water.  They checked the other tunnel, which went up, and at 90 degrees until they came to a stabling area with fresh air etc.  Within was a beautiful peregrine gryphon.  Inspection of the gear showed it was arranged so the gryphon could carry both Turoa and Parella.

There was still time to get back to Ripa Daneo, so they decided to fly back after feeding the mounts.  Tai rode the peregrine gryphon, who was satisfied enough at the familiar Silver dragonborn rider.  Spencer stayed close, but not too close.  Turoa was on Greedy with Kaikoa, and Parella was on Gruff with Terrance.

The flight was irritating.  Turoa had the confidence and conviction of a young adult with a cause, and did not appreciate being reined in by his dad, let alone informed by his dad and friends that he was Wrong.  An hour into their flight, Parella roused, and also did not appreciate her new situation. 

"You should not have captured us," she declared, "We were doing Te Mārie's work."  Terrance and Kaikoa we unmoved by these opinions.  It clearly did not cross either of their minds that the Freelancers had been hired to stop them, and the Freelancers did not disabuse them of this misunderstanding.  Tai's patient explanations of how their work didn't really align with the tenets of Te Mārie did not really enlighten them, either.

The Daystar had sunk behind the western mountains by the time the Freelancers arrived in Ripa Daneo.  They flew out over the crater and circled back to the Rim, to land in the little area for winged mounts adjacent to the Temple of Serenity.  The half-elf Isadella saw them, and she quickly sent for Badak, a half-orc man who led the temple.

Parella and Turoa were finally silent in surprise.  Badak stared at them serenely, then thanked the Freelancers.  6 other people emerged from the Temple:  4 monks and 2 clerics, who took custody of Turoa and Parella and escorted them into the depths of the cliff.  The monks didn't appear to be from Tranquil Crossing.  The Freelancers explained about the belongings–the gryphon, the weapons and shields, and others took charge of those items as Badak led the Freelancers back into his office.

Once there, Badak paid the Freelancers, then said, "Tell me about the Freelancer Cut.  we might need Freelancer help, depending on how much luck we have with rehabilitation."

Tai:  I will come speak to My Son
Badak <in a counselling tone>:  you should give this a little time.

Tai bridled, then calmed down and assented.  Then the Freelancers explained about the mission pay and Freelancer cut, and took their leave to return to Freelancers Tavern.