Episode 49: Steven

General Summary

Clocks

Recap

Greenbloom 7 to 16, 3033: Year of Darkness

Leaving Charonvein, the Flamebringers ventured forth from their allies' home, summoning mounts and waving goodbye to the goliath kids who tried to run with them as they left town. Before leaving, Iravek had a conversation where he asked how they knew what they're doing truly is the right thing? Tyra said that they have to have faith. Valan summoned Silverbullet, or Aura's Flight as she says she is named. She called Tyra honored one as they spoke.

On the road, the party learned a lot they didn't know about each other. For example, that Valan has a pegasus and has had her since the beginning. Pharos smokes a pipe. Charles has nightmares and sometimes screams in his sleep. Also that Valan wears nothing but purple magic underwear to bed. And that Callisto and Dahlia were hooking up; Jules blurted that one out, feeling left out since he had no secrets of his own that he was able to tell. However, the party all nodded to each other, understanding that this was already known amongst the group.

That night, they encountered a strange pack of ogres while Pharos was on watch. The trio approached, pretending to be boulders, giggling and talking to each other, and were easily spotted by Pharos. He approached with Tyra, waking them, and stopped the group. They attempted to mug the two, but the ogres proved easily persuaded to leave (Pharos banished their boss). Scarring off the boss when it returned, the pair rooted through the bag and found:

• A giant drinking horn filled with potent giant mead
• 2 1 dead trout (Pharos ate one)
• A wagon wheel
• A casket with cat bones in it (Tyra buried it)
• A carved stone statue of a dwarf
• A bag of dried mushrooms (Pharos ate one and the sky sang to him)
• A hollowed out skull named "Gareg" that was clearly used as a drinking vessel (buried with the cat)
• A handaxe marked "Handchopper" that appears nonmagical.

The same night, Tyra encountered a gremishka, which they cajoled with the other dead trout and some rations to hang out with the party. The group later on encountered eight halflings mounted on velociraptors, but dispatched them quickly. During that fight, Pharos used Handchopper as a throwing axe, and it beautifully sliced off one of the halflings arms, killing it instantly. It seems to have a taste for them.

Charles' dreams began to become manifest in reality. He could see the towers of Manto in the distance. The group theorized that this was something manifesting as they neared the stone circle; though, when Pharos got close to the single standing stone, he had to touch it to receive the vision, and Valan's vision didn't occur until they were in Lillyview. Charles' visions began when they were still a day's travel from the Circle of Storms.

Return of the Arcane Sanctum

Wandering through the jungles, the group came across a strange anomaly: calliope music. Following it, they made their way to a familiar sight, the Arcane Sanctum. Seeing Beedle again, they had the much needed chance to trade some of their lesser needed magical items.

• Tyra traded in the Staff of Thunder and Lightning and a Longsword, +3 for two Tomes of Leadership, and their disintegration spell scroll for a regenerate spell scroll
• Pharos traded in a ring of Spell Turning for two Tomes of Understanding; a Amulet of Health and Bag of Holding for a Best of Fire Giant Strength; and an Amulet of the Devout, +1 for Goggles of Night
• Charles traded in the Armor of Invulnerability for a Belt of Storm Giant Strength, much to the chagrin of the party, as it was the pride of the goliaths' armory and partially Pharos'
• Valan traded in his Ion Stone of Regeneration for a cloak of Invisibility, and his Ring of Feather Fall for a Cli Lyre

Pharos cut Tyra's arm off as the regeneration kicked in and their eyes reformed, and Tyra managed to pull out the Soulinium shard from their old arm. They also managed to collect the tattoo ink as it flowed from the wound, and successfully preserved their old arm. As they were preparing to leave, Beedle offered them a deal: a trade for a resurrection scroll for their head in a jar in exchange for the Flesh Vault of Khalamzar. The group took the deal.

Resurrecting the head, casting a cloak over him as he reformed in the nude, the group trimmed the lace from his mouth. He introduced himself as Magic Steven, a head from the Old World. He said he died around 1518, when a very bad man cut his head off his head. He said that he was in a place called Faerûn, where he was attacked by a coalition called the Sentinels at the Thaymount; the Sentinels being the Sunwalkers, lead by Cracraes, who killed him; the Silver Strings, lead by the Planeswalker DeMarcus, the Blood Hawks, run by the Blood Hawk, Pernelis; and the Black Wraiths, lead by the Nightmage Noctura. It had a magic that he used to bend to his will, but he doesn't have access to it anymore. They also had hundreds of gods, not nine.

He was in awe of the Call and said he couldn't hear it, but yet Pharos noticed him tilting his head, as if trying to listen to something. He was equally fascinated with Jules, commenting that he knew of two individuals working on such technology: the Nightmage and Sylvanus. Sylvanus was a powerful mage, the Harbinger, who had an apprentice die under his wardship, and was looking for a way to return him to life. The Nightmage sought vessels for his Black Wraiths to persist in death. They worked together, but to different ends. Steven wanted to make a perfect simulacrum of Sylvanus, but the corrupt Sentinels would not let him, they didn't want what he knows to get out. The Flamebringers encouraged him not to make perfect simulacrum of anyone, as the moral implications of that are not ideal. He eventually, begrudgingly, agreed.

Magic Steven said that he had found a way back to life through something called the Chained God, but it seems like that entity isn't around anymore. The black goo sustained him, but has dissipated now. Though Tyra could still see something like it, something similar to the nodes that appear when under the affect of a Damnatio Memori, coursing around his nervous system.

He recounted his last death to the group: in 1518, at the hands of the nefarious Cracraes, the wicked Sentinels confronted him to rest their conspirator Sylvanus from Steven's custody. Cracraes cut off his head, laughing as he did so, holding it aloft as Steven even yet still maintained his faculties, holding it to their cheering horde below as they looted the tower beneath him, ransacking homes and razing the city. The terrible Sentinel then shoved his head in his bag, and it wasn't opened up again until he was discovered by archeologists in the Wasting Swamps; near the Circle of Leaves. He was carted across the continent, picking up Andalian Common on his way, until they grabbed him from the aution.

Voices of the Deep

In the night, they closely watched Steven. Tyra kept watch while Pharos pretended to be asleep, as did Charles, as did Steven. When Pharos noticed Steven was faking, he confronted Steven, who said he couldn't sleep because of the voices. He asked if that was what the Call sounded like, to which Charles, who had been trying to block Steven's ability to listen to the Call, sat up and informed him that what he was hearing couldn't be farther from the Call. Steven said the voices said they could give him his magic back, but Tyra convinced him not to listen to the voices. He is Magic Steven with or without magic; the arcane is not what makes him magical, it's what's in his heart that puts the magic in his Magic Steven. That seemed to speak to him.

But later in the night, as fog rolled in, the voices became more insistent, manifesting until they began to make threats to the other party members. They are terrible looking things, the figures in the fog. Ideas of people, featureless but for a slash of a mouth, rising from pools of water nearby, swaying as if in a breeze or current. They said give them Steven or they will take him, for they desire his invaluable knowledge. The Flamebringers wouldn't let them take him. He may be strange, but he is worthy of redemption.

They moved to get into Valan's mansion, but all of them but Steven had been allowed in when Valan cast the spell, so he had to begin to recast it. The others took defensive positions and began to fight off the specters, but Pharos ignited Dawnfire, scaring them off and waking Steven.

"Wait, that sword," he whispered, squinting with sleep in the brilliant light. "It is familiar."

Greenbloom 15, 3031,

The woman who was flirting with me last night? The one who I spoke to and laughed with at the fountain all night with? Walked through starlit streets until Felicitis began to dip below the horizon and Serenity threatened to chase us to our pillows? Dahlia fucking Druex. The Forgotten Heir. From Arcanus. Daughter of the High Matriarch. Sky and stone, I feel like one of the Five Fools. I saw her at the Accords when she gave the opening speech for the Theocracy. Minor noble my ass.

She had the audacity to wink at me as she introduced herself to the Vagabond later. Charles had to pick my jaw up off the god-scarred floor.

Evidently, she is trying to pry into something here. She was asking the Vagabond about his meetings with the Emperor and the Pathfinder, but he danced playfully around the subject. His silvered tongue diverted Dahlia's attention, but the fact that he evaded her questions at all suggests there is something to evade. I'll be watching him.

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Spoke to Dahlia again at the Embassy; she was waiting for me at the fountain. She assured me that she was only leveraging my connection to the Vagabond on the side. My unkempt hair and haunted demeanor held the bulk of her attention. Really owning the "man of mystery" rizz.

While we talked, I watched the Vagabond. He is indeed meeting with the Emperor and Pathfinder. Not only them, but Reharis and Leonidas as well. The others entered in covert, but the Pathfinder is hard to miss in that armor. He has a gravity in the Call I've been seeing too much of recently. I managed to pull Dahlia's attention from where I saw them congregate, and I don't think she noticed. No need for her interest to conflict with mine; I enjoy our conversations too much.

— From the Journal of Callisto.

Missions/Quests Completed

Head in a Jar. It was Magic Steven! That wasn't on anyone's bingo card.

Notes