Session 014 ❖ June 28, 2020
| Name | Title | Class | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aeris | Knight of No House | Fighter | Has no memory of their past. |
| Caenn | the Mage | Wizard | Well-educated and curious. |
| Espi | the Girl in the Flower | Cleric | Is about to learn an awful truth. |
| Gallows | Herald of the Wheel | Bard | Betrayed by one he loved. |
| Garviel | of House Ibis | Cleric | Cast out for breaking his vows. |
| Marus Kiwa | Faithful of Mananan | Cleric | Priest of the Sea-God. |
| Rhea | the Small | Thief | Grew up on the streets. |
Espi insists on accompanying the party as they return to the wreck, still desperate to find her sister. Garviel notices the absence of his pet, Saturn.
They into the belly of the ship, where they defeat the ape queen and her harem. They win another gemstone amulet, and meet with a mercenary named Gallows, of the Wheel of Gehenna.
The group proceeds through a pair of barricaded double doors into a galley. The room is mostly filled by the bulk of a vast papery hive, bulging through the wall and engulfing sinks and countertops. Smoke from a kitchen stove serves to calm the giant bees within. The room contains cured meats and jars of honey with visible silver flecks. Rhea samples some of the honey, has a glimpse of another world, and begins speaking poetically. Looking closely, they can see traces of verse on the chewed paper making up the hive...
The party venture into the hive itself. Garviel distracts the queen bee and the others collect honey and royal jelly.
In another chamber, a kind of museum, they find arrayed seven sarcophagi and a tempting pile of gold. The pile is not of coin, however, but the shiny shells of living scarab beetles, which swarm up Garviel’s arm. Skeletons and a mummy emerge from the sarcophagi. Garviel drives off the beetles and successfully banishes the skeletons. Rhea strikes the mummy but is paralyzed for the remainder of the fight by its withering gaze.
The next room appears to be an office containing logs and records. Inside, Garviel discovers a mechanical creature with a single large eye, two small wings, and jointed limbs. The being identifies itself as Sir Enceladus, Knight of Truth and Law, and explains that it is a spontaneous fusion of Saturn - the raven of testimony, a spirit of truth - and a Modron summoned accidentally by stray spell of Caenn. Garviel and Enceladus become firm friends.
Next they encounter a giant hornet attacking the docile bees, and take up arms to defend them. Espi and Sir Enceladus together strike down the hornet, and the modron tells her that he has seen her sister! They cross the rift between the ship’s two halves and find an atrium. Painting on the walls depict a pastoral scene of a peaceful farm, soldiers marching on parade, maidens playing in a fountain, and people reading in the gardens in the grounds of a cathedral.
Before the double doors are two pedestals, each with a sign listing Security Protocols for access to the room beyond. The S and the P of each sign are ornate and illuminated, drawing the eye. One pedestal is empty; on the other is a statue which looks exactly like Espi. As the party approach it turns to flesh, and steps forward, raising its sword and bidding them go no further. Espi breathes, “oh no...”
Espi tries to speak to her ‘sister’, but the security statue responds mechanically, following its instructions, feeling nothing for her. She looks around at the paintings as the truth sinks in - she has no childhood, her memories of growing up are just dreams she had while sleeping in the flower, dreams inspired by the paintings she stared at every day of her duty as guardian of this place.
She’s not human. She’s not a person. She’s just a statue that has learned to talk. She falls to her knees before her twin and weeps.
One by one the party approach her. Caenn tells her of how living things can turn to stone over a period of millions of years via the process of fossilisation; he speculates that she might be a reverse-fossil, brought to true life by some unknown process. If so, he says, she is not an object but a wonder. Gallows tells her that he wasn’t always known as Gallows; when he joined the Wheel he cast his old name aside, symbolically ending his old life and beginning a new one. It’s not too late, he says, for her to begin a new life.
And Garviel kneels and reassures her that whatever she’s made of, wherever she came from, the Goddess Mitra loves her, and will protect her. Comforted, she rises, as the others discuss what to do. They try to convince Espi’s twin that one of them is the captain, but they need to prove membership of the Explorer’s Guild to do so, as with the captain dead command will default to the highest ranking guildmember.
The party returns to Bar Saturn. Along the way, at Caenn’s urging, they place the remaining statue within the flower. Espi watches, eyes glistening with a fragile hope, as the petals close around her twin.
Up until now we’ve been very focused on dungeon crawling, I wanted to give the PCs an emotional challenge, and they rose to the occasion! I loved that everyone found a different approach to comforting their new friend.