Tag Archives: Avv

Someone Wrote Back (Drayek’s Temple Wall)

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A few nights into the camp east of Nodden-Torr. Alexis waits until the four of them are looking at him.

“Shasherak. Drayek. And Deragoth.”

“I’m not sure you remember what Drayek’s temple in the Westlands told us. One stretch of that carving was still readable. It recorded an alliance between Drayek’s cult and a power it called Shasherak.”

“The exact agreement was lost to disturbance and time, other than one of them was owed something.”

“There was newer carving on the same wall: ‘The Hand that Reaches, the Crown that Binds, the Blood that Wakes the Fallen.'”

“I took that as a prophesy. I think it’s a reply. Somebody read what I read and wrote underneath it what they mean to do.”

“Avv gave it back to me in a dream. Not all three of it. Just one line. ‘The Blood that Wakes the Fallen. You must stop him.'” Alexis squints his eyes. “Him.”

“The Hand we’ve had our hands on for a couple years now. The blood I can name. The crown…” Alexis asks the question “Ædelfred?”

The fire crackles.

“And Deragoth. He was Shasherak’s. The stories give him cursed armor made out of the skin of the enemies he killed. The armor Ezrin probably wears now.”

How to continue on the path of Raiden

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A week into leveling up

Ethelred has been keeping on a eye on Alexis since we left the dwarven cave with the Tear of Ave.

Red approaches Ca’ramine.

“Car’mine… I want to ask you about Alexis and his keen focus on the Tear of Ave. Let me explain.

When I first met Alexis he was following the god of luck. He always had a coin and took the whims of the world as a challenge.

Then he switched to Ave. I never fully understood this choice, but saw the benefits and the meaning it brought Alexis.

When you and Rask joined the balance of the party changed in many ways. The obvious was the push for conflict resolution through strength. But the more important shift was towards Aigeir and towards Raiden. Once again Alexis switched to newer god. And I get the reason and I see the many benefits.

But now we find ourselves at yet another crossroads. I see two paths. One where Alexis stays with Raiden, and the larger party. One path where Alexis get pulled back towards Ave.

That gem is powerful. More powerful than I think we fully yet understand.

I ask you to keep an eye on Alexis. Especially if we want to keep him on the path of Radien.”

A Dream Outside the Monastery

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Alexis dreams of being in a vast, crumbling library beneath the earth. The shelves stretch into darkness filled with books bound in skin and ash. In the silence, a voice whispers from a pulsing tone with a crackled black cover. He reads it. The runes speak out that this is the truth of the crone. Alexis opens it only to find his own handwriting, cataloging secrets yet not yet learned. As he reads it, the ink bleeds from the page and forms the face of Avv. But her features seem to be rotting in front of him. Something is wrong. Alexis gets the feeling that he has abandoned something. The voice of the crone distorts. Bandages begin wrapping around Alexis’ face, blinding him. He now feels like he’s being dragged through the aisles by spectral librarians, chanting, “She’s corrupted and so are you.”

Alexis awakes with dried blood on his nose and a sentence in his mind “Beware the king, his tomb is empty, for he had made his pact.”

What About Raiden?

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It’s the morning after the group camped at “Ty-Lynn’s Garden”. Morning settles soft over the camp, the mist clinging low to the bedrolls and the blackened stones of the fire. A crow mutters somewhere in the trees. Alexis stands near what’s left of the coals, warming his hands more out of habit than need.

“Since Warder Yule,” he says, eyes on the faint embers, “and especially after what happened last night, I’ve been thinking about where my magic comes from.” He straightens a little, turning his hat absently in his hands as he speaks. “Avv’s realm has its uses—finding what’s hidden, drawing the unseen to light. But I’m not her servant. Never was. And since we left Ghanil, treasure-hunting hasn’t been high on the list.”

He looks up then, toward Ca’armine, but his voice carries to all of them. “The name of Avv… tends to make people uneasy. You’ve felt it. Yule certainly did.” He gives a small, crooked smile—more acknowledgment than humor.

“I trained with the Collegium,” he goes on. “They teach you to touch where you choose, not a servant any one realm. And I’d like to be in greater harmony with you; my Raidenites.”

Turning to face them fully, the mist curls around his boots, “Are you willing to help me make the shift?”

The Need For Some Time to Appraise

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It’s the daytime after the group has first started scouting Tarkus Vell’s warehouse. Ethelred is on watch.

Alexis stirs, pushes himself upright, and glances around the camp. The others are still wrapped in sleep, breath rising steady from their blankets. The quiet hum of the nomad quarter beyond, the wide grasslands holding steady at the city’s edge. He spots Ethelred on watch and lowers his voice.

“Evening Red” Alexis whispers.

…

“Mostly good,” he says after a moment, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Though I woke from another of those dreams—like the visions back in the Westlands. This time I was behind the eyes of a great white wolf. It dug at the earth, but the ground gave back bodies instead of dirt. And still it tore on, trying to reach something burning below.” His hand closes around the red jasper at his throat. “We can’t let him succeed. He’ll ruin everything if we do.” Alexis says it plain, as though stating the weather.

Alexis takes a moment and shifts gears.

“I’ve been thinking that after we leave here we need to spend some time discerning what some of our tools do. I still lament giving up those wooden rings, but we weren’t spending the time we needed to figure them out and Mavon needs the money. But while traveling away from here, or wherever we are next that’s quiet, please make sure I make time to uncover the mysteries.”

Alexis eases back down onto his bedroll, folding his hands behind his head. His gaze lingers on the pale sky, a faint smile touching his lips as the sounds of the nomad quarter drift across their camp.

The Reality Under The Copper Hills Fort

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The Crimson Calling is sailing on the Gilded Zephyr, having been smuggled from Sutheron and heading to Llanos port. Alexis kneels down next to Ethelred, who is continually studying the documents from the Collegium, holds the red jasper around his neck, and chants something while his other hand forms precise forms and seems to get a little blue.

For the next many hours Alexis sits next to Ethelred, thinking. Occasionally one of the Calling will ask him for something, or about something, and he will respond and then go back to his focused thoughts. For some portion of his reverie he writes or draws in his book.

The next morning at breakfast clears his throat to get the group’s attention while he idly walks a copper coin across his knuckles. “Yesterday I studied the ritual room with the demon under the Copper Hills Fort. As we had suspected it was human magics calling upon demon magics. Nothing about the magics was anything I’ve ever encountered before. Not the sorcery on the sword, not the summoning. But I could clearly make out two intertwined magics: one demonic, and other was of Avv.”

A Week In The Grasslands

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After the group has been dropped off by Hap, spent a day investigating the items they have, and enjoying being in the grasslands each of them starts delving into their own studies.

Over the next week, the weather seems to stay cold where the group is, even as spring seems to be taking hold around them. Frost greets the group on their gear and around the camp.

As well, during this week, backpacks and other buckles seem to be open when they were left closed. Perhaps this coincides with the occasional dreams of twisted creatures begging to be released when nothing seems to shackle them, struggling to open doors that finally open to rooms full of seemingly worthless treasure, or attempting to read books that contain text that seems to form never-ending and circular writings.

Good Blessings. Bad Blessings.

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At some point during their two weeks at the grove before heading to Barra’s pool the three treasure hunters are all having an evening meal together. After some logistics Alexis turns to his companions.

“I’ve been thinking about our battle with the Red Cloaks under the fort, and how much easier it might have been if you’d both accepted the ‘blessings’ of the symbol/archtype you both refer to as ‘Avv’. And the thing that has me confused is the ‘blessings’ you’re willing to accept and the ones you’re not. And I speak as someone who is happy to accept boons and blessings from almost any ‘god’. Obviously Nurgle would be hard for me because the slime, the spores, etc.” Alexis gives a shudder of revulsion. “And I wouldn’t trust a gift/boon from the Arril-Noroth since I expect it would contain a barb of some sort. But back to the subject at hand…”

“You both willingly accepted a ‘blessing’ from Bora Bloodfist, servant of She-Who-Is-Fierce, and from that ‘blessing’ we were taken on a journey together and now better understand the Path of the Peacemakers. Great. But that started because you both accepted magics from a priest of the goddess of the gnolls. That was acceptable, but ‘blessings’ from ‘Avv’ are not.”

“And you both willingly accepted the task to break Dauntless for a boon from She-Who-Is-Fierce. And I was, and still could be, excited to see what sort of boon that would be. But my point is that getting a boon from that goddess whom many consider evil and hostile to humanity, Raiden, etc was acceptable, but blessings from Avv are not.”

“Red, you can I carried the Eyes of Maglubiyet accepting the risks and rewards therein. But somehow a blessing from a matriarch of humanity is not.”

“Gus, you wear bracers of the VahnYir, who pledged themselves to the Arru-Noroth. And you accept the magics I learned from those bracers to further help you in your aim. Magics that also come from the VahnYir. This is all acceptable to you, but blessings of Avv are not.”

“Please help me understand how you are both willing to accept the magics of forces so antithetical to humanity and Raiden, and so hostile to accepting help from the human magics of ‘Avv’, who defended humanity at one of the points when humanity needed it most.”

Alexis looks between Gustav and Ethelred.

A Remembrance Of Mysteries

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After Vagram and Teldon have left the tent of the Crimson Calling, Alexis consults his notebook and then addresses the group.

“Depending on how things go up north we might be able to answer some of our outstanding questions, mostly from our time at the Greyfax estate.” Alexis looks at his companions, and through his look conveys that this is a good time to bring Ezrin up to speed on anything that might have been missed previously.

“Some of the questions that have been on my mind” Alexis pats his notebook

“What really happened on the night we witnessed?”
“What was the nature of the donkey cart with all the monies that went into the woods?”
“Who was the girl chased by the wolves? It would be nice to make sure her name is sent to the Hoodites for a proper ‘rememberance’.”
“Where were the people taken? What were the swirls in the mist?”
“What happened to Torrin, and why was he the anchor for Utiog?”
“Were they aware of Avv’s involvement? Can they tell me more about that?”
“What happened to Lady Sofia that night? Where was she?”
“Who was the girl Ty-Lin girl that haunted Telosh? … and who was eventually… um… banished to the undead city?”
“What is the name of the undead city? Is it Kobos? Do they happen to know anything about Kobos? Now that I think about it, I should ask Vagram and Teldon on our hike north, on the very-remote chance.”
“How much interaction did they have with the Dark Hand? My understanding was that the ‘night-of-the-mists’ resulted in the people at the Greyfax estate being taken away into slavery. If so, it seems reasonable that they could have had a ‘relationship’ with the Dark Hand.”
“Much to do with Barra’s cave. Did they know it was Barra’s cave? What do they know about the pool? What do they know about the Eyes?”
“Based on how much Torrin hated Arri, it seems reasonable that they might know about Arri. I would be curious to know more.”
“Do they happen to know any more about the Saggi or the Akkil?”
“Obviously, all the mysteries around the twice-broken?”

And there are some additional questions I have since we will be going north.
“What is the nature of the bell?”
“What other treasures do they know about at the undead city? Do they know more about the nature of the undead city?”
“Have they heard about lost treasures north of Middlebar?”
“What was the effect within Middlebar when the villagers came out and confronted the Aegirian army?”

Alexis looks between his companions, mutely asking for additional questions, or ready to answer questions they have about his questions.