The Spirit Appeased and a Fey Companion Won

Session Summary: 04/16/2023

Ahhhh, comprehension begins to DAWN on our heroes! Armed with a comprehension potion that Diana would later bring them, and with Geist's grudging expertise providing context, Charles set himself to the task of fully deciphering the elven inscription on the stone archway within the catacombs. The text was a dedication to Desna, goddess of dreams and travel, and confirmed beyond doubt what Geist had already suspected: this archway was an Aiudara, an elven gate, and it bore the name Andon Olui Ho. The Great Gate of the Dreamy Owl.

The gate was damaged, as Geist had indicated, and should by every right have been dormant. Yet a trickle of mystical energy continued to leak through it, and that leak was feeding the spread of the black sand throughout the aquifer with a cocktail of conjuration, enchantment, necromancy, and transmutation energies interwoven in a signature that Geist called unlike anything he had encountered in his considerable years of fey experience. The gate was not merely broken. It had been CORRUPTED, and whatever had done the corrupting had done it deliberately.

Armed with this understanding, the heroes made a more concerted effort to appease Lena Mueller's spirit. Charles laid out the evidence they had gathered: the letter G on the doorframe, Gregor's presence in the guest book, the nature of the damage to the gate. He promised Lena again, with more specificity now, that the man responsible for her death and Hans's would be brought to face justice. Something in the quality of his conviction, or perhaps simply the weight of evidence he had marshaled, settled around her restless spirit like a blanket. She would WAIT. But she expected results.

Geist himself proved increasingly invaluable during this period. His knowledge of fey customs, dream energies, and the peculiar intersections between the waking world and the Dreamlands filled gaps that no mortal scholar could have addressed. He was cantankerous, opinionated, and deeply unhappy about his situation, but his information was consistently reliable, which made him worth tolerating. Kiren had made an excellent acquisition.

The heroes departed Poiana with a clearer picture of the conspiracy ahead of them, a fey spirit in a skull riding in Kiren's pack, and a ghost's patient fury at their backs. The road to Lepidstadt, and to Gregor Pendergrast, lay open before them!