13A:Play/17 A Bone-headed Idea

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Starring: 📜Elistheren, 🌲 Qistis, 📚 Annalana, 🐾 Kaelon, Steinar
Guest Starring: Professor Greydove and Selfie Moontingle Arianna (Qistis' parents)
Challenge: Conversation
Location: Silver Spire Conservatory in Horizon
Date Played: 2017 Aug 09

Back in Horizon

📚 Annalana: When we get back to Horizon, Annalana confirms that her journals are all present and accounted for. We then check the gateway that took us to the Woods and find it to be a simple and empty room.

Elis seeks out a locksmith with Annalana and Qistis in tow. He hires the locksmith to give him more information about the lock so that the combination can be discovered.

Kaelon talks with his skull and then introduces it to Qistis. The skull calls Qistis, “Toots”. The skull is demanding a new body. They tell the skull about Inigo, the brain in the jar. The skull is quite taken with the idea of taking over his body. Qistis gets upset. Kaelon tells her that they are half siblings. She leaves.

Kaelon gets Elis to come next to talk with the skull. It is believed that Inigo is on a mission for the Archmage.

We have a large group “debate” (read: argument) about what to do with the skull. Qistis wisely sides with Annalana, voting to destroy it. The rest of the group want to try and get some use out of the skull.

📜Elistheren: I must be honest, I don't trust the talking skull. That isn't to say we should just smash it, or what have you- it may have value, but I don't trust it. In the meantime, the vault in Santa Cora remains locked, and I haven't the foggiest what to do about it. I have remembered every detail about the safe, however. It's likely that there's some record, somewhere. My ritual to Epthis failed (Steinar is born from books, in the right mindspace he should be able to read things written between his own pages, things he doesn't know!), so I must take a more prosaic approach: I hired a locksmith who knows more about the subject than I do, and asked him to do research. Finding a forgotten combination is akin to finding a dead god.

🌲 Qistis: We make it back to Horizon without much incident (at least, after we leave the elven forests anyways). Elistherin seeks to open a vault and we speak with a vault cracker about getting it open. I cover the costs just in case. This seems important to Elistherin and supporting my comrades outside of battle is something I should probably get in the habit of. Kaelon seems to have be hiding a friend since we left the catacombs a few weeks ago. They wont divulge their name but honestly I don't even care. The skull is a complete ass and isn't worthy of being addressed regardless. It demands a new body and "eyes" me lecherously. I back out and make myself scarce. The thing should be destroyed.

Searching for Inigo

📚 Annalana: Steinar takes us to the Sapphire Shield, a tavern. Qistis and Annalana share drinks at the bar, separate from everyone else.

It turns out the bartender, a half handed man with no teeth, knows Inigo Sharpe, and Inigo owes him several months worth of money for bar tabs. Inigo was a man who never slept with the same woman twice, was ever changing and fickle.

Inigo attended Silver Spire Conservatory. So did Qistis.

📜Elistheren: As a point of fact, each clue opens up a web of unseen connections. Here, we discover an unseen connection between Inigo and Qistis.

🌲 Qistis: Against my protests of smashing (I honestly can't believe Annalana was talked out of it), we head to a few taverns before eventually ending up at the Sapphire Shield. Annalana and I share some drinks while the others find information on Inigo. The barkeep is a fantastic records keeper and has receipts back from when the man had an actual body and was a student in on of the magical schools. Since it of course was never meant to be fully avoided, the gods have deemed that we discover that Inigo attended the Silver Spire. I can only hope that I can avoid any encounters with my parents.

Silver Spire Conservatory

📚 Annalana: Upon entering we are met with a large, fine garden, which is still using Qistis’ rotation pattern. Her mother does potions and botany for the school.

Annalana and Elis go off to find Qistis’ father, Professor Greydove. Qistis and Kaelon stay to tend the garden while Steinar goes to seek out Qistis’ mother.

Qistis’ mother is the Head of Herbal Essence. She is half elf person, long black wavy hair and black eyes, with pale skin. Her name is Selfie Moontingle Arianna.

Proctor of Abjuration, Greydove. His door is locked with magic. Annalana begins to threaten the admin assistant. Before things get violent, Annalana turns away and leaves.

📜Elistheren: And thus we encounter Qistis's family. They're… well, I never really had a family. The Cathedral was my family, such as it was.

🌲 Qistis: Well...at least the grounds have been maintained somewhat to my standards since I've left. I might have to speak with the current Lead Gardener about the state of affairs but that will be for another time. While the others decide they absolutely 'need' to speak with my parents myself and Kaelon tend to the plants and find a mandrake root. I'll definitely have to speak to someone about this, but will keep the specimen on my person for now.

When Annalana gets back she speaks to me about my father. While the others are busy I decide to take her aside to speak to her about some things. (Note: Annalana's entry details what we spoke about)

Private talk between Annalana and Qistis

📚 Annalana: Qistis is related to Kaelon, they are have siblings. It wasn’t kaolin, it was the dickhead skull who spilled the beans. The high elf who led us out of the forest told Kaelon this. Qistis thinks that this relates to her righteous father (maybe her mother).

(Can’t write it down): Kaelon got some demon vibes off of the high elf. The man may be her magical patron, a drow, a very powerful one, named Asham Zilb. Qistis studied at the Silver Spire and continually failed at magic. During her thesis she came across something that helped, a power that blessed her to be able to cast magic. Her father ignored her this whole time. This drow is how she could cast magic. Qistis feels like there is something magically about her book, which has a tree that has leaves that keep appearing.

Fight with the plants

📚 Annalana: Kaelon notices that the plants are growing super quickly as they attack! There is a shadowy figure that is vaguely humanoid who is terrifying to behold. This form speaks a language that Elis doesn’t not know (despite his feat).

Annalana engages with the shadowy figure and gets a deadly dose of poison as it heads to Qistis straight away. Qistis recognizes what it is saying as an ancient Elvish, “Traitor. Traitor.” We take out the shadow, which turns to dust, and it leaves behind a necklace. That Qistis picks up.

📜Elistheren: And then we were attacked by plants. I once knew a talking plant. It was a symbiotic hybrid of an oak tree and a lichen summoned from somewhere Outside the world by a clumsy mage.

🌲 Qistis: Maybe the state of the plants have a more sinister cause as when we're all back in the garden the bushes and fines attack, lead by a strange shadowy creature. It's words are foreign but I manage to pick out ancient elven among them, but not just regular ancient elven...it's older than anything I've ever personally studied. After we defeat it it falls to ashes and left behind is a strange necklace, which I pick up to examine later.