Monday, January 15, 653 AU

• The party (aside from Valya, who is still guarding the zombies in the Heirel estate’s basement) heads to the north gate of the city to help let the delegation from Eth’Alorei in. Along the way they spot a black leopard with purple eyes. It makes no move to attack them, and they don’t have time to investigate, so they move on.
• At the north gate, they spot a group of city guard lead by a silver dragonborn. The dragonborn is talking to a tabaxi warrior whose armor does not appear to be Tel’Arissan. The gate is closed. Ferunas informs the party that there are smaller gates at various points along the city wall, but they’re sure to be heavily guarded too.
• Ferunas steps out into view of the guards to attempt to talk sense into them. The dragonborn, Sergeant Nirosh, does not listent to Ferunas—he says they’re taking the city back from the Castalian half-elves, and to tell the Dawnbringers that the city guard have orders to execute them on sight.
• Aurelia casts calm emotions on the guards, making them non-hostile for the next minute. The Dawnbringers then reveal themselves. Though the guards don’t attack the party, they refuse to open the gate, saying they are under orders to keep them out. Sergeant Nirosh also informs them that Kellia Dorlan has “abdicated her position”, though the party know that she was led toward the city guardhouse.
• Rather than try to take on the guards, they decide to retreat and focus on saving the duchess. They return to the Heirel estate, leaving Ferunas and his loyal guards behind and taking Valya with them.
• They sneak their way to the guardhouse, but on their way they notice that the black leopard is following them. The leopard transforms into a human woman, introducing herself as Aetheris. She’s suffering from amnesia and has no idea where she is or what’s going on, but she has druidic powers and agrees to help the party save the duchess and prevent the coup.

⁂

• They make it to the guardhouse and see two guards at the front door. The first floor has glass-paned windows, but the second floor windows are barred. Valya casts charm person on one of the guards, and Aetheris casts the same spell on the other. Aetheris successfully convinces one guard to defect, and that guard convinces the other guard to defect as well—they both run off. It seems not all the guards are fully on board with the coup!
• The party enters the guardhouse and the guards inside, led by a vampire spawn named Othar, attack the party. Valya tries to get the guards to turn against the vampire spawn, but they all believe allying with the undead is the most expedient way to free Tel’Arisse from Castalian suzerainty.
• They fight the guards and the vampire spawn. Initially the party is at a huge disadvantage, because they have a guard upstairs holding a knife to the duchess’s throat. The vampire then casts mass suggestion from a scroll, telling them to lock themselves in the cells upstairs. Valya, thinking quickly, pretends to succumb to the spell, using the opportunity to get close to the duchess and cast dimension door from her cape to teleport her outside. Aetheris, turning into a rat, also makes her way upstairs and rescues Thyreos, another noble who supported Kellia Dorlan.
• They question the surviving guards, and learn that Marenora is being sworn in as interim ruler of Tel’Arisse. Valya, searching the rooms upstairs, finds four of the spell scrolls—two of hold person, one of suggestion, and one of rope trick. They also find an additional hold person scroll on the vampire’s body.
• Kellia Dorlan mentions that she has two daughters who escaped outside the city last night through the tunnels. This piques the party’s interest. The duchess confirms that in her estate there is a tunnel that leads outside the city, which they could use to let the Eth’Alorei delegation into the city.

⁂

• On their way to the Dorlan estate, they encounter the tabaxi, Quiet Marble, that they saw with the guards at the north gate. He is a wandering warrior from the Kolakush Desert in the Gemra Empire. He was initially helping the guard, but realized they are on the wrong side, and has decided to help the Dawnbringers instead. They explain to Quiet Marble what’s actually going on, and Quiet Marble says that his rapier, Stinging Nettle, would certainly like to draw the blood of a necromancer.
• Quiet Marble seems to recognize Bill, but he can’t place where he’s seen him. Valya tries reading his mind, but doesn’t learn much aside from that Quiet Marble wants to “save his people”.
• They make it to the estate, shoo away a looter, and head through the tunnel in the basement to a mausoleum outside the city. They find the delegation from the Temple of Soleil in Eth’Alorei—Isylnor Krisra (their leader), Selussa who has an arrow wound in her shoulder from the archers on the wall), Amra (Aurelia’s friend, who insisted on joining), and Sharian (the most junior of the group).
• They tell Isylnor what’s been happening, and Isylnor says she will defeat the necromancer and her undead—the coup is a secondary issue as far as she is concerned.

⁂

• Back in the city, they see that the zombies have been released and are stumbling through the streets. Isylnor, Selussa, and Sharian head off to take down the undead, while Amra joins the party to take out Marenora in the Great Hall.

• Aetheris transforms into a spider to spy on Marenora—she is in the main hall with Lieutenant Richdorr and six nobles hog-tied on the ground. Marenora is gloating about how everything went according to her plan, and how all they need to do now is wait for the Dawnbringers to show up so she can finish them off.

• The party decide to enter and surprise Marenora and Richdorr. The fight is difficult, and unfortunately Marenora kills all the nobles as collateral damage when she casts circle of death. Marenora appears to be treating the fight as a game, telling the party that Bellaroth is not the only one who raided Ghelroth’Far, and that she has learned magic beyond their understainding. And after she dies, she sends the party a sending, mocking them and thanking them for a fun time. She’s still alive, somewhere, somehow!

• Aurelia, in shock, casts revivify on two of the nobles, Orion Demodokos and Melis Timun. Apparently, they were on the fence about Marenora’s coup, and that’s why they were kept behind—she was going to mind-control them later.

• Valya searches Marenora’s belongings, finding 485 gp, 3 black onyxes, and two scrolls; fireball and dominate person.

• Aurelia wonders if her brethren from Eth’Alorei would actually want to help Kellia, or if they’d also want to replace her with a full-blooded elf from Amyanthalas.

• Isylnor speaks with Aurelia, assuring her that everything she did was in the service of Soleil against the evil of Neesha, and that it’s not her fault if those guards didn’t leave when she asked them to, it’s not Aurelia’s fault. “The will of Soleil is like a blazing inferno, a wildfire, and some innocents will inevitably get caught up in it. It is in the name of the greater good.” She also reminds Aurelia that she was supposed to leave for the Shining Citadel some weeks ago.

• That evening, Valya intimidates some nobles into donating diamonds so Aurelia can raise more of the fallen nobles.

• They also talk to Renzhemi, who reluctantly agrees to accompany them to Crystalport, along with Quiet Marble, who wishes to fight Bellaroth for glory.

• They visit the morgue and burn Marenora’s corpse to ashes, just in case.

• Aurelia and Valya have a reconciliatory conversation, where Aurelia apologizes for being so hard on Valya, and Valya says Aurelia reminds her of Lucan.

• Aurelia receives a sending from Nikryll, the sage in Crystalport she paid a week ago to research the comet. He wants to speak with them immediately. They tell him they’ll meet in Eth’Alorei.

• It’s past dark by the time they make it to their inn in Eth’Alorei, the Golden Leaf. Nikryll arrives at the inn. He looks haunted, with dark circles under his eyes, and he acts slightly mad. He claims he’s being followed by shadowy figures, and that his office and home have both been ransacked. He shows them a book he discovered in the Crystalport Archives called the Susurri Ignis Caelestis, written in Old Castalian. The title translates to Whispers of Heaven’s Fire. The book opens with a quote:

The Seven Blasphemies were ancient laid
In secret Cradles, where, on Ichor fed,
They grow, while with a cunning void-forged blade
False gods their Faithful butchered, hanged, and bled.

And when the Dream is loosed upon the Earth
And when the Sleeper’s vessel mars the Sky,
The Seven in their strength shall prove their worth
And wake the Sleeper, and the world shall die.

—The Maw in the Sky III

• The book continues for hundreds of pages with astronomical data—just lists of numbers. At the end of the book, scrawled hastily, is a phrase: LOVE THE BLASPHEMIES—IF YOU HATE THEM, THEY SEE YOU. Under this is a drawing of a big eye.
• Nikryll says he knows a gnome named Calziver Cobblegem who operates an observatory on the western edge of Cymosa, who might be able to interpret the data.
• Before bed, Bill smokes his pipe, and the smoke forms unmistakable words: Trust not the purple one.
• Aurelia and Valya continue their heart-to-heart conversation at the bar in the Golden Leaf. Aurelia admits that calling on Soleil’s power felt righteous and good, even when killing those guards.
• Bill has a dream that night. He’s following William to a tower in the middle of a sandy desert. As he approaches the tower, something flying through the air hits him from behind and knocks him to the ground. It growl’s “seek me”, then bites him in the back of the head with powerful jaws. Bill wakes up in a cold sweat.

Tuesday, January 16, 653 AU

• The next day, Aurelia buys another diamond and returns to Tel’Arisse to revive the next noble. As she is casting her raise dead, she receives a vision. An angel has appeared before her, shining with the light of Soleil. She hears its voice in her mind:

Every diamond you spend on them is one that cannot be spent on those with greater ability to affect the course of events. When you are finished wasting your resources on them, what then? Would you raise all who die? Call all deaths unjust? Would you usurp Soileil’s father? Our Lady’s will is a great conflagration, Aurelia, and those unfortunate enough to stand in her path will be destroyed.

• The noble, Theruman Udaxos, thanks Aurelia profusely, but Aurelia is barely paying attention. She hurries back to Eth’Alorei and speaks to Amra. Amra thinks Aurelia should speak to Vaeri.
• Meanwhile, Aetheris discovers a crumpled piece of paper in her pocket with an address written on it: 45 Rose Way, Crystalport. ❦