Colonial Caerdia: Lark's Landing is a story being told through a 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign I'm running at a local hobby shop called the Devil's Bench. If you aren't familiar with this ongoing story, you can follow this link to Once Upon a Tabletop on YouTube to hear the start of it or read the brief summary I wrote when I switched from video to blog.
You can find the previous episode here.
1st - 6th of Waxing Fall, 0AL
Having slayed the mighty demon to thunderous applause from the festival attendees, the 3rd Watch - particularly the newer members - absorb the attention happily while Extang finishes his ringleader spiel. After reviving Fiaeorri, they talk about how the demon escaped - eventually having Fiaeorri admit that she'd set it free intentionally, as she was bored of waiting for someone to release it by accident.
They decide to go and have a chat with Feryon about his demon summoning - Extang stays behind to control the fire on the tent and keep it from spreading. Everyone else heads up to the bamboo tower which is precariously swaying in the wind. They knock on the door and hear something break inside, but there is no answer. Checking through a window, they see a vase smashed on the floor, but no sign of the wizard. They attempt to catch his attention by throwing some pebbles through the window, but they hit some magical barrier. The door is also solidly shut and Dugg's badger fails to burrow in under the floor.
While they are doing this, Extang - having taken care of the fire, and being the only one who saw Feryon run off, heads for the temple. There he finds the cowering wizard. He informs him that the demon is dead, and explains how he played off the incident as being a show. He then tries to negotiate for some free magic lessons, but Feryon seems resistant to the idea. The wizard eventually agrees to fourteen such lessons, with the stipulation that he can deny lessons on days when he's too busy. He then returns to the tower, where he is accosted by the others and is forced to promise never to summon demons, or any other fiends, ever again. Before everyone departs, Balasar also gets him to explain the enchanting process to him.
Everyone goes home for the night, except Stor - who joins the council members on the dunk-tank scaffold for the remainder of the festival, and stays up to enjoy the magical fireworks.
Over the next four days, Balasar works with the blacksmith, Gorbosh, to reforge his warhammer into a magical greatsword. Dugg spends his days out with foraging parties, gathering herbs. Stor begins a batch of beer brewing, and then works on training his perceptiveness with Ardona. T'Zaric experiments with starting a gambling hall, but doesn't get much interest. Extang takes some magic lessons, and then sees about trying to get a glassblower's furnace made - unfortunately, Angro seems to be the only mason in the entire settlement and he's busy working on a mill. Fiaeorri builds a shrine to Pagslas out on the the beach.
At the end of the four days, Balasar calls everyone together and shows him his new sword, explaining that he doesn't know who he was in his past, do he is using it to define his present and his future. He then asks them to come and help him explore the inside of his own mind, explaining that his friend Gilligan found a way for him to access his locked up memories - though it is potentially dangerous. The two newest members are a bit hesitant until Balasar offers to pay them, negotiating it to 8 gold per day.
So, the next day they make their way over to where Gilligan is building a fancy house for Triena and tell him they are going to go look at Balasar's memories. Gilligan agrees, but says he won't be joining them - he's going to keep the doorway open, because they almost lost it the last time they went in. He settles everyone down into a meditative circle, lights some incense... and uses his psionic powers to bring them into the inside of Balasar's head.
In their partially ethereal states, they begin to explore their dark, undulating surroundings. There are fourteen openings, most of them blocked by writhing tentacle-like things, as well as a tear in the wall - also blocked. They decide to go for the opening on the left, but cutting their way through the two tentacles that block their path causes monsters to emerge, as well as a great deal of pain for Balasar. However, after dealing with the nightmarish creatures, they do find the way open, so they head in - and get sucked down a tube-like thing and emerge experiencing a memory of Balasar's. He's a silver dragonborn, having a supposedly friendly chat with a dwarf with mutton-chops and no beard, who is happily bragging about his people and their defences. Balasar leaves the table with a sense of satisfaction, and the memory fades, leaving them in a bubble-like room with clips of the images flitting around the edges - and a sense of dread from the three of them who knew Shend best and recognised him in the memory.
T'Zaric, who had been enthusiastic at first, is starting to become uncomfortable - and they're all experiencing a slowly-growing pain in their heads. However, they head back to the main chamber and track notice two of the openings have only thin membranes that can easily be cut through without bringing monsters to attack them. They go through one, experiencing a memory of a black-scaled Balasar in a tavern, asking for assistance in tracking down some traitors - he gets pointed in the right direction by an elf who, upon emerging from the memory, Balasar and Stor recognise as Kalon - a druid friend they'd had aboard the Noble's Lark. The other pathway showed Balasar flying on a wyvern named Deathbringer that lands. He finds some tracks, and is satisfied that his quarry is near, then the memory fades.
They exit to the main chamber, thinking it may be time to leave, but are surprised to find some tentacles missing, opening two more paths - one of them the tear. They decide to go through that one, but Dugg elects to stay behind - T'Zaric is ready to leave as well, but Stor offers him a barrel of alcohol, so he comes along. This memory was the first one Gilligan and Balasar caught a glimpse of - - Balasar on a table with a hooded and blank gold masked individual telling him that everything is going to be okay and that he's been unwell. Two short, similarly masked and hooded individuals enter the room and the three cast a spell and suddenly Balasar's head is full of pain as the memory fades.
Now it has really been too much for T'Zaric. Even with the barrel on offer, he leaves - followed by Dugg. However, the others still want to know more, so they continue on exploring memories as new ones become available. Balasar brings a squad of soldiers as reinforcements for an army led by Hargrom and containing Kordak. Balasar recruiting werewolves that won't join while they're having problems with a particular vampire. Balasar emerging from some rough buildings, talking with an associate about orders to exterminate a particular bloodline, conveniently researched by a cult - and accompanied by a jar containing an eye that will somehow help with finding targets.
Then there is a major one, which is a compilation of memories about the three masked and hooded individuals experimenting on him, then presenting him to to several tieflings in Somvidian officers' uniforms as an ultimate, though experimental, weapon. Stor recognises one from his recently returned memories as his former master, and he and Balasar recognise another from a picture Akta once showed them - her father.
After this memory, Balasar is feeling pretty rough and is ready to leave, but six more pathways are available and a curious Fiaeorri urges them to continue on. Balasar heals himself and the others who need it and they press on into more memories: a gold-scaled Balasar organising villages to attack a child-stealing cult; compilations of Balasar's memories where he's sacking villages (in one of which he viciously kills Naldor's wife and daughter in front of him); Balasar kidnapping and retrieving wives of the Emporor who ran away (often pregnant); and Balasar gathering information and carrying out assassinations (one of his informants having been T'Zaric).
(Outside, in the real world, Dugg goes off to the woods, and T'Zaric goes home for something and returns to the unconscious others and compares Balasar with a bounty poster he has. He nods in satisfaction and heads home, muttering "soon"...)
The "just one more" urging takes them into just one more memory, but they don't get to see it as their way is blocked by monsters they aren't feeling prepared to fight. They flee back to the portal and exit Balasar's mind, awaking in the real world with Balasar feeling considerably weakened - not to mention shaken by his uncovered memories.
And that's where this session comes to an end. Check back in another week to find out what what new secrets are revealed in Episode 32.
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