Last episode, our heroes fought a desperate battle against Odo Thriceborn and his cult of flesh-eaters, killers and monsters. The battle seemed hopeless, but Vahid, in an act of desperation, compelled the storm-spirit in his cloak to lend him its power, drawing the spirits essence and vis into his own body at great physical cost. Thus empowered, the Seeker was able to lay Odo and his forces low with storm winds and lightning, and the battle was won, with few losses on the side of our heroes — but the Seeker has been changed by his brush with the spirit (and vice-versa!) and how big that change is and how long it will persist is anyone’s guess.
Now, Odo is down, but not out — the party knows that if he is not destroyed utterly, he will return, worse than before. To that end, they have lead a funeral procession, consisting of their own allies (Baraz, Mutra the Teeth and her bravos), the escaped prisoners (led by the young not-quite-warrior Axel), Dawa Eyegouger and a small group of repentant cultists, to the Foundry, where they hope to find a way to light the forge-fires and burn their Odo’s accursed body to ashes.
With Odo defeated, the party now must turn their attention to a still greater foe — Cirl-of-the-Storms, who is preparing to ride on the Delve in a great raid. We ended last session with Padrig considering their options — time is limited, and there is much to be done. Here’s what you folks decided for them:
The five leading options, in order, are:
Deal with Odo’s body
Rest
Investigate a cure to the Howling Curse (Tie)
Sort out leadership in the Delve (Tie)
Train a militia
To track the time til Cirl’s arrival, we’re going to bring back the countdown clock we started way back in Session 12.5 (which, despite being months ago in real time, only took place about 48 hours ago in game time). Back then, it had two ticks marked, and we’ll mark an additional tick to represent time spent preparing for and executing the mission into Odo’s Lair.
This is a nice abstract of putting time pressure on the party. Still, we also have to keep an eye on the specifics of the fiction — when the PCs first learned of his plans, the full moons were about two weeks out, and it’s been roughly 3-4 days since then, so the party is looking at roughly 10 days of prep time before the reckoning.
This ep is on the shorter side — writing time was dear this week, but I wanted to do my best to keep up with the weekly schedule. Since Odo’s body is the priority, we’ll rejoin the fiction there:
Scene 1: Flight from the Depths, Continued
The funeral procession reaches the Foundry near dawn — the sky is painted red, heralding a coming storm, and all around them, the Delvers are stirring from their rest, watching Odo’s body pass from windows and doorways with increasing interest. The party stands before the towering bronze doors, and Vahid knocks on the doors with the Azure Hand — once, twice, thrice — with a booming echo. There is a short, tense wait before the massive doors swing open — just a crack — and Demetra, first wife to Jahalim of the Keys and his personal bodyguard, strides forth. With her are six of Jahalim’s toughest bravos — grim-faced Lygosis and Manmarchers, armed and armored for battle, not just a street fight. Demetera sees the throng of followers behind Vahid, and at her a sharp gesture, her men level their spears, ready to fend off a charge.
Padrig is on the lookout, trying to glean Demetra’s intentions and the dangers present.
Padrig triggers Seek Insight: 5+2+2 Wisdom = 9, Weak Hit
He uses his Situational Awareness move to ask the question ‘who or what is the biggest threat?’ Answer in the fiction:
Behind them, Padrig notices a smaller, reedier man hiding behind the line of spears and holding a round glass vial, its top sealed with wax and wrapped with dark, soaked linen scrapes. In his other, a torch is held high, and he takes curious care that the embers falling from his brand do not come near his payload. He taps Vahid on the shoulder and gestures subtly to the man.
Vahid triggers Know Things: 5+1+1 Intelligence = 7, Weak Hit
Vahid leads to Padrig and whispers. “Naft -- you might know it as Lygosi Fire. It seems Jahalim has brought a bit of our home to this faraway place.”
“Can it burn Odo’s body?” Pad whispers back.
“No -- I have seen its effects on a cadaver at the Lyceum. It is a terrible weapon, but not a fit tool for our purposes. When the hdour comes, however. Or if Jahalim betrays us here...” his voice trails off.
“Right,” Padrig mutters, keeping a close eye on the man and positioning himself for a clear shot.
Demetra, meanwhile, regards Anwen at the head of the mob with a suspicious glare. “What is the meaning of this? Why have you brought this rabble of Tenements gutter trash here?”
Anwen triggers Anger is a Gift here — Demetra’s callousness in the face of the suffering of the Tenements-folk counts as one of her triggers: bullying, slavery and oppression. She doesn’t immediately spend any, however.
Anwen’s anger flares in her chest. A moment ago, Demetra cut a fearsome figure, but now that is forgotten, and she strides towards Demetra, her armor and blade still covered with the blood she shed and spilled in Odo’s Lair. “These people were Odo’s prisoners and his prey. They deserved protection from you and the other bosses, and you left them to be food for the wolves. They are here to see justice done at last. We have done what you and your master would not: Put Odo down like a mad dog. Now, we must dispose of the body to ensure he will not rise again, and we need to light the Foundry’s fires to do it. Will you stand aside?”
Demetra’s eyes finally fall on Odo’s corpse, wrapped up in his bloodstained robes and borne by some of the bravest and strongest of the Delve. She looks to Baraz at Odo’s right shoulder. “Baraz, you are an honest man, and Jahalim has been your and Parvati’s patron for years. Speak the truth: Is this so?”
Baraz bows his head humbly. “It is so -- I saw the final blow struck by Seeker Vahid’s magic. In all my wanderings, I have never seen such a miracle.”
Demetra’s gaze flicks at Vahid, the mistrust plain on her face. “Very well. You and your comrades may enter. No one else.”
Axel sounds off in the crowd. “We’ll wait here, then, until they return.”
Other voices join him as the crowd grows restive: “Aye, and if they do not, Jahalim will pay!”
Demetra tenses and her men begin to move forward, but she stops them with a sharp gesture. “Come. Quickly. Let us be done with this.” She orders two of her bravos to aid them in bearing Odo forward, and they cross the great threshold of the Foundry, the bronze doors shutting heavily behind them with a boom.
Scene 2: The Foundry
Jahalim meets them in the smelting chamber, a vaulted hall with five mighty earthen crucibles -- four arrayed at the compass points around the largest in the center.
The would-be Delve Lord presents himself with what passes for pomp and circumstance in this remote place. Draped in the skin of a grasslands lion, fearsome, well-armed bravos flank him, and a pair of pack drakes broken to the leash, snarling at those who draw near. At his shoulder is Abram, the chained Judge of Aratis, dragging his fetters behind him and held by the hulking Manmarcher, Rolf. Vahid, Padrig, and Anwen stand before him, battered but triumphant. His bravos lay Odo’s body at Jahalim’s feet.
The Master of Keys looks down at his fallen rival. “Thrice born, thrice dead. Why have you soiled my doorstep with his corpse?”
Vahid’s throat is raw as he answers. “Fallen, he is, but the Lady of Crows will not take him. He is banished from death by one of the Things Below.”
“So the whispers are true. He was a monster.”
Anwen growls. “He was a monster long before this, but you treated him like a peer. She points the bloodied Bearkiller at him. “Why must Stonetop come to drive this wickedness from Gordin’s Delve?”
As Anwen speaks, Vahid catches the eye of Abra, the chained Judge. When Anwen makes her accusation, his eyes widen, and his lips part as though he wants to cry out in support of her, but he keeps his guarded silence.
“Peace, Anwen,” Padrig counsels, a guiding hand on her shoulder. She lowers her axe, and Demetra and her men take a step back from their tense readiness, though the grim-faced bodyguard keeps a hand on the hilt of her blade.
Vahid breaks the tense silence. “We must destroy his body utterly. We must light the fires of the Foundry and burn him in a crucible.”
Jahalim points to the door. “Thanks to Odo’s outmaneuvering of your friend and ally, Mutra the Teeth, we have no fuel to light them. My forges are cold.”
“Great Jahalim,” Vahid begins, his tone growing didactic. “Do you imagine the ancients made great stacks of kindling to light their forges? They who could command iron and fire as their servants?” he says, a touch of the storm’s haughtiness creeping into his voice.
Jahalim’s eyes narrow, and Padrig winces. This is not a man accustomed to beingtalked down to, Vahid.
“Speak plainly, Seeker. I have seen magi hanged from the Temple of Aratis’ holy gallows for falsely claiming they could produce a flame or some other such conjurer’s trick. We have no holy gallows here, but we can make do.”
Anwen tenses, but Pad grips her shoulder tightly. “Trust Vahid,” he whispers. “He knows something.”
“A spirit slumbers beneath this place -- the ancients bound it here to light their forces and their crucibles without the need for fuel. Observe.” Vahid casts his storm-marked eye towards the crucibles, and the slumbering fire spirit sleeping within them. He extends his mind into the unseen world through the Azure Hand and gently stirs the spirit.
With his sight beyond sight, Vahid begins to discern the form of the spirit. Louring beneath the crucibles, it is a tremendous, sinuous serpent of fire, glowing dully like campfire embers at first light. It is bound to the crucibles and the hidden conductors that connect them beneath the stone, with its coils wrapped around the bronze carriages that cradle the smooth clay bowls.
“Awaken,” he sends to it through the Hand. “You are called to fulfill your ancient pact.”
The serpent stirs to life, its coils growing hotter. With it, the air begins to warm. Jahalim and his hangers-on begin to murmur among themselves -- though they cannot hear Vahid’s voice in the unseen world, they feel the heat rise. Then the spirit speaks with a hiss, and the ashes beneath the crucibles stir as though in a blowing wind, and a murmur runs through the crowd of onlookers.
“Who art thou, who claims the authority to treat with me?” the serpent hisses.
“A disciple of Indrasduthir, last of the great Tempest Lords, wielder of the Azure Hand. I have come to call upon your service.”
“You are not one of the Binders. It takes more to make a master than a scepter alone. You cannot command my oath.”
Vahid wants to know a bit about the spirit's needs, so he's going to use the extra Seek Insight question he gets from Let's Make a Deal ('What do you really want?') to try to get some leverage. After all, he has disadvantage on his Charisma rolls, so if he's going to persuade this thing to work with them he needs all the leverage he can get (and advantage to cancel out his disadvantage).
Vahid triggers Seek Insight: 5+2+1 Wisdom = 8
Vahid learns what a fire spirit wants, and it's pretty straightforward — it wants to consume, and it is much less satisfied with wood and coal than it is flesh and blood. Answer in the fiction:
“I can, and I shall,” Vahid sends. “But not without an offering.”
The spirit snaps to attention, its coils growing tighter and hotter around the crucible bases. Jahalim’s bravos begin to sweat. “What is going on, Padrig?” Demetra hisses. “What is he doing?”
Padrig nods to the Master of Keys, pitching his voice so that all can hear him. “He is doing as you asked, Jahalim.” The Lygosi holds his hand up, staying his wife’s fury.
Vahid hears none of it -- only the spirit. “An offering, yesssss,” the serpent hisses. “It’s been too long since a great sacrifice danced in my fire.”
“We bring you a kingly gift -- the unliving body of a demon, a being of great power.”
Thanks to doing his homework, he rolls with advantage (canceling out disadvantage from Vahid's Sickened debility) and upgrades his weak hits to strong ones thanks to Let's Make a Deal.
Vahid triggers Persuade: 5+3+1 Charisma = 9 Weak Hit ->Strong Hit
“Yesss..... the snake hisses. Give it to us, and we will sssserve you for a year and a day.”
Vahid snaps his attention back to the world of flesh and blood. “Place Odo’s body into the central crucible. And stand back.” As he gestures to it, the crucible seems to be heating, the bronze that cradles it glowing a dull red.
The bravos, enthralled by the spectacle, leap to obey. They drop their spears to the ground and lift him up, rolling him into the glowing heat. Odo’s body takes flame almost immediately, and the spirit shudders in delight. The foul smell of burning flesh and hair fills the hair, and Jahalim’s men take an involuntary step back as the fire climbs higher, dancing and changing strange, unnatural colors. Then, horrifyingly, Odo’s body begins to stir, writhing against the linen bindings that hold him, which are rapidly disintegrating to ash in the fire. “By all the gods! Look! We have put him living into the pyre!” one of the bravos shouts.
“No!” cries another. “It is just a trick of the flames. It must be!”
A fitting end to Odo Thriceborn. // Source: Midjourney
Anwen doesn’t wait to find out -- she strides forward, each of her many wounds crying out in agony as she moves, and she snatches up one of the bravos’ spears. When Odo breaks his bindings and rises, roaring with the roaring flames, Anwen meets him with the spear raised high in a swift, overhand thrust.
One of Odo's moves as a thrall is Recover from terrible, even mortal injuries, so this felt like a fair GM move to make. Anwen responds — she is holding Resolve from her previous interactions with Demetra, so she spends one to act suddenly, catching them off guard, and rushes forward to push Odo back into the fire.
Anwen triggers Defy Danger: 5+2+2 Strength = 9, Weak Hit
That's a problem for Anwen -- Odo deals damage as a cost for success, and she only has 1HP remaining. This is a Death's Door roll, no bones about it. Let's see if our Would-Be Hero survives. Here's the move for reference -- amusingly, you can see the option that Odo took under the Miss results:
Anwen glimpses Death, but does not die. Back to the action:
The tip pierces Odo’s burning chest and drives him back as he tries to rise from his crucible-pyre. With his last measure of strength, he lashes out at her, his long fingers, burnt and twisted and wreathed in fire, reaching out. She feels his blackened talons slash into her, ripping her hide armor. Her vision is darkening, and all around her are blurs of motion -- she sees Padrig bellowing orders and Jahalim’s bravos racing to pick up their spears or turning craven and running. The Master of Keys is on his feet, Demetra holding him back from charging in. Her vision narrows to a dark point, and for a moment, she sees her mother’s face, her eyes full of tears, as they were when she saw her in the prison beneath Marshedge. Then, all is darkness and quiet.
Her eyes open with a start, and she feels the cold wind in her hair. She stands on the edge of the village bluff -- where she fought Owain in a duel to the death only a few short weeks ago. At the cliff’s edge stands a yawning portal of black void hanging in the air but close enough to step into. At Anwen’s left hand is a familiar face -- a tall, pale, cold-eyed woman with a stern mother’s face, beckoning her to end her play and rest.
Anwen looks back at the village behind her. It lies in decay -- the Pavilion of the Gods tumbled down, the stone houses collapsed and abandoned, and the Public House burnt to ashes. And perched on every wooden bone and every fallen stone is a crow, watching with silent curiosity. Overhead, there are hundreds more, wheeling and crying, though the cacophony seems distant and muted.
Anwen turns back and approaches the Lady of Crows, and the light of recognition touches her eyes, pale blue irises in pools of black. “Is this what happens to Stonetop? If I fail?” she asks. Her breath fogs in front of her face — and all at once, she feels the numbing cold that seems to radiate out from deep within her bones.
She puts a cold, gentle hand on Anwen’s cheek. “This is the path of all things — the works of gods, the Makers, and humanity. All glory will pass from the earth and enter my abode.”
“And is it my time? I still have so much to do.”
“Not thou, child.” Her lips do not move; her voice is the rustling of dark wings. “You still have great gifts to give to me.” And with a gesture, she dismisses Anwen, back to darkness and quiet.
We’ll close out here. Next week we’ll begin with the party having rested — Anwen will likely need the most rest after her brush with death, while Vahid and Padrig will be on their feet sooner, meaning that sorting out the Delve’s leadership will be on them.
As always, thank you so much for reading, and I’ll see you in your inbox next week!
Short but great - loved the visualization of the Lady of Crows
Does this poll result mean that there will be a training montage?