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.
6st - 8th of Waxing Fall, 0AL
Having emerged from exploring Balasar's memories, the four who had stayed agree that they need to talk about what they saw - but Balasar insists on waiting until tomorrow, after he's had a chance to rest. Not only is he exhausted and feeling weakened from the experience, but he now also has vein-like patterns on his blue scales, crawling up his arms and the sides of his neck - black on one side and silver on the other. The others accept this.
In the middle of the night T'Zaric sneaks in, accidentally waking everyone before they all settle back to sleep. In the morning, they have their chat - minus Dugg, who hasn't been seen since leaving Balasar's mind early. Balasar is very concerned about who he was in the past, and talks about changing his name to something like Salabar.
The group fill T'Zaric in on some of the memories he missed, focusing on the one where he had been selling information to the Somvidian Empire. He doesn't deny it, and he produces a wanted poster he had featuring one of Balasar's alternately-coloured personalities, saying that he hadn't realised it was Balasar until seeing his memories of having different coloured scales. Now, however, he has no intention of cashing in on the reward any time soon - if only because there's no one to collect it from.
Balasar talks a bit about possibly sending magical messages to someone he interacted with in the memories, but Fiaeorri and Stor are push for getting right back to the memories. And so, the five of them return to Gilligan and enter the meditative dream-state that takes them to the dark, undulating interior of Balasar's mind, where they resume their journey, focusing on new memories.
They experience Balasar giving a man a description of a necklace, and the man saying he will form a team to retrieve it. They then enter the memory they fled from on the previous day - fighting their way through some hideous, shadowy internal demons before getting to view it - another collection of memories, this one of war. Sometimes Balasar was fighting for the Somvidian Empire, other times he was against them - until he gave a signal and he and many others turned on the side they were fighting for. Coming out of the memories, Balasar notices that he had been using his clerical powers in the battles, but his holy symbol was odd - in different battles it took the shape of the symbols of different gods, but before going into battle he would always clutch it in his hand and it would turn into an ivory mask - the symbol, Stor helpfully tells him, of Pettix, the got of poison, thievery, and betrayal. They also all recognise that, in one of the memories, the army Balasar betrayed had been led by Takyev, a human noble they know from their settlement's council.
They head back out to the main chamber, finding they have explored all but one of the memories that lead off it. Unfortunately, that one is still blocked by several tentacles and Balasar is afraid they'll have to go through the painful process of cutting their way through until Stor reminds him that some of the other memories had other paths that might now be open. So they dive back in, re-experiencing memories and sometimes finding the way blocked, but finding open pathways as well.
Beyond the memory of trying to recruit werewolves is one of leaping off the back of Deathbringer the wyvern into the middle of a battle to deliver the final blow to a vampire - thus sealing a deal with the werewolves. Beyond the memory of asking after traitors in a tavern, there's a memory of Balasar setting eyes on his targets at a crossroads. It is too crowded for him to attack, but the half-elf man and human woman crouch down to talk to the goblin with them, then they send the goblin one way and head the other. Balasar follows them, knowing that the goblin is a less important target and will be easier to find later. When the memory fades, everyone has recognised the goblin as Stor - and Stor has recognised the two targets as his adoptive parents, and has a sinking feeling about why they weren't on the ship.
Past the memory where Balasar had brought reinforcements to an army containing Kordak and Hargrom is a memory of a very annoyed Balasar with many of those same reinforcements, guarding a caravan of refugees fleeing the war zone. He's giving some of the civilians a hard time to vent his feelings while waiting impatiently for something. Through the memory of tracking someone, Balasar has spotted the person he has been sent to retrieve - a yellow-skinned tiefling with a broken horn. However, she is speaking to someone - an odd, humanoid fox-like creature. The two shake hands, then the fox-like creature steps through a magical door and vanishes. Balasar goes to move in, but a voice right beside him draws his attention. He spins to see who it is and what they want, but the fox-like creature just grins and says she's protecting an investment before vanishing through another magical door. Balasar turns back to see his target has gone. Emerging from the memory, most of them recognise the two figures as having been Akta and the Negotiator.
They head into the memory where Balasar was being experimented on over time and presented to a group of tiefling in Somvidian officer uniforms, from which there are two open paths. One takes them to a series of memories of a blank-minded Balasar locked in a dark cell that he came to know very well over time, and the other featured more memories of being on the experimentation table - this time for being "fixed" of various problems, such as his scales rippling through several different colours.
This time when they return to the main room, the last door in there is open. They enter a memory in Krorheart, the city the Noble's Lark sailed from, where Balasar is following Extang down the street, intending to kill him. Then he spots a more important target, whom the group later recognises as Triena, the priestess of the Four who gave birth to Chance, the settlement's first child. Balasar immediately turns to follow this runaway, pregnant wife of the Emperor, but before he gets to the tavern door he is set upon by three hooded figures with blank golden masks. He is confused, because he recognises them as allies, and his hesitation costs him his consciousness - but not before he sees Deathbringer swoop out of the sky and get killed.
Emerging from the memory, they see a shadowy wyvern and rider emerge out of the ceiling. The enemies charge in and there is a desperate fight, ending with Balasar killing the rider and Stor jumping onto the wyvern's back and driving his spear through its skull, triumphantly riding its form to the ground as it dissipates into the floor. A second route out from this memory leads them to the memory awakes with the hooded and masked figure standing over him, ending with him in pain.
Balasar is just about ready to call it a day, but Fiaeorri offers to forgo her pay for the day if he lets them cut their way into a specific memory. Balasar very reluctantly agrees and, when they get to it - the one following a memory of him rallying several villages to attack a child-stealing cult - he hesitates again, seeing that there's only one tentacle blocking the way. However, with Fiaeorri urging him on, he cuts through it - suffering a fearsome headache as three flaming horses emerge from the writhing ends of the tentacles.
A desperate fight follows. Though Extang grows Fiaeorri to a larger size, she is soon knocked unconscious, dying from her wounds. Just as she is revived with a healing potion, Balasar is taken down by another one of the horses. The entire environment shakes, and a giant, screaming Balasar head emerges from the ceiling as the unconscious dragonborn watches from above through a nightmarish haze. Fiaeorri is knocked unconscious again shortly before the flaming horses are finished off. Balasar is revived with a healing potion, and he in turn uses his magic to bring Fiaeorri back to consciousness.
Not to be deterred, they limp into the freshly opened memory, where they witness Balasar in the aftermath of a battle heavily featuring villagers armed with improvised weapons. He is talking to a human who has frequently been his companion before, saying that they did a good job, but there were survivors. However, it doesn't really matter, because they know how to find them.
Fiaeorri isn't entirely satisfied with the answers she found here, but there are no other memories leading off of this one. Besides, they are all feeling weakened, so they hurry out, awakening in their bodies back at the settlement. They are surprised to find that the healing potions they used in Balasar's mind are now empty - though they were never opened.
Fiaeorri pulls the group together and tells them that she needs their help with something. She pulls out the necklace they heard described in one of the memories and tells them that it is connected to her people - people, as it turns out, that Balasar helped to wipe out. However, there are apparently survivors, and there's some way to find them. She asks them if they'll help her, and they agree. She also gets them to promise to never tell Dugg about the necklace, though she won't give a reason why. They all hesitantly agree, recognising that they all have secrets that they will only talk about when they're ready.
Balasar lingers behind everyone else to talk to Gilligan alone. He tells Gilligan about some of the memories - focusing on the vampire one, as he believes it relates to Gilligan's history - and how he's done horrible things in his past. As a result, he wants Gilligan's help in case he needs to fake his death so he can disappear in the future. Gilligan doesn't believe any of his talents will help with this, though, as he doesn't have any illusory skills. He agrees to think on it, even as Balasar rushes off to talk to the people he think might be more suited for this task - Fiaeorri and T'Zaric. He discusses faking his death with them, and they agree to help him - though he gets the feeling Fiaeorri is undecided as to weather or not she'll actually try to kill him when the time comes; T'Zaric, on the other hand, seems completely genuine when he says that he won't try to kill him.
The group eventually all filter home, going to bed and wondering what their next foray into Balasar's memories will bring.
And that's where this game session ends. Find out what happens next in Episode 33.
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