Mystvale, Session 3

Note to self: Don't piss off Arlian.
 
Picking up where I last left off in the epic tale of Lance Fenleth, my group was met with an angry mob upon returning back to our home. We had a clue as to why they might be there. If for whatever reason what Skolvar and I did while we were in town actually happened to the townspeople instead of the cloaked figures, well it would be obvious why they were angry. We decided to meet them outside seeing as we had nothing to hide. The mob seemed to make up everyone in town and was being led by Mayor Thorne and Father Miller. Even Dana, Odessa, and Theo were there. This was a nice surprise ad we had not found them and we were glad to see they were safe. Father Miller announced that the town was angry and that all of us were to blame. If we consented, he would cast a zone of truth and a trial would commence. We agreed, but during the preparation asked Mayor Thorne what this was all about. Of course, what I feared had come to pass and the town believed Skolvar and I killed a child and attacked others. Hem, Arvenna, and Jenel were all at fault for things too, but Mayor Thorne said it would come out during the trial.
 
Father Miller started by questioning Skolvar. Of course, Skolvar was accused of killing a child in town as well as breaking into a home. Even more curious though was that he was accused of tossing a patron out of the inn's window. Anyways, Skolvar told his side of the story, the truth of course, and Father Miller confirmed to the town that while it was not the outcome they wanted, Skolvar was telling what he believed to be the truth. Something interesting came of Skolvar's questioning though. We all thought it was the 16th of Midwinter, but according to the town it was actually the 12th of Frostbringer. Even Dana, Odessa, and Theo agreed with this. Curious, and definitely something to take note of. I was next and was questioned about the events with Skolvar. The killing of the child, breaking and entering, attacking townsfolk. Pretty much everything we did in town. Like Skolvar, I told my truth. I kept my explanation short and simple, getting to the point and remaining cautious. Like the outcome of Skolvar's testimony, Father Miller confirmed that I was telling what I believed to be the truth. With that, Hem was next.
 
Poor Hem. The man needed encouraging just to walk forward for his questioning and upon being told that he had killed a Vistani he was overcome by guilt. However, he got through his questioning, and it was becoming clear to the town that we had experienced something entirely different than they had. Jenel's questioning was the first time we were accused of something that didn't involve anyone else. Apparently, there were witnesses that said Jenel and Hem performed a "dark ritual" in one of the inn rooms. What an interesting way to refer to a trance. Dark ritual my ass. But with Jenel's questioning done, that left Arvenna.
 
First, Arvenna was accused of slamming the inn door on a Vistani. Our recollection of that was her slamming the door on a mist figure. Intriguing. But then, Father Miller said he was given a dream, one that he knew Arvenna had as well. He said that in this dream, Jenel was a drider and was trying to lure Arvenna into Lolth's clutches. Arvenna was in a zone of truth and couldn't lie, so she confirmed this was true. But how did Father Miller know? That made no sense to me, but with Arvenna's confirmation he proposed a ritual to "cleanse" Jenel's blood. This was also placed on Jenel because the blame had to fall somewhere, and he was convinced it had to be one of us. Jenel accepted, saying that she had nothing to cleanse and would submit to the ritual. She ran inside, changed her clothes, and came back out. During this time I got to talk to Father Miller briefly, explaining to him that we needed to talk privately on matters that involved the town's safety. I wanted to discuss the "unspeakable one" with him, not using the name of course, but to hopefully get information out of him. Also, the trial that was just conducted was very weird. Accusations were made, it was shown that we were clearly not at fault, and the only person convicted was taken away due to a dream. Out of all the "evidence" they had that we had committed crimes, the baseless dream is what did it? That's not right, and I would have spoken up but I couldn't think of a way to counter without sounding like I was throwing baseless accusations myself. Besides, Father Miller had the power, not us. He probably only conducted the trial to satisfy the people, but had he wanted to he probably could have just taken us without one. Nevertheless, Jenel was taken to the church and we were left to our own devices.
 
I was exhausted, but before I could sleep I knew Hem needed a talk. He took the trial hard, and we still needed to discuss the name he had heard. I found him outside, still in the same spot that the zone of truth was. We talked for a bit. It was a good conversation, I just hope he thinks so too. I gave him a little insight into "the fight," but the main topic was him. Or at least, while we may have talked about the fight more, I found that talking about him was much more meaningful. To summarize, he thought that he was broken. He's an Eladrin, a type of elf whose appearance changes with the seasons and/or with their emotional state. He said that he has always been stuck in his winter form, resulting in this idea that he was broken. I don't know what happened in his past, and I wasn't about to pry since I was in no position to do so, but I've never heard of an Eladrin not being able to change their appearance. That, and if an Eladrin's winter form is supposed to represent some sort of cold and icy emotional state, well that's not Hem. Hem is like... the child that does their best to be nice and is SUPER apologetic when they mess up. I don't mean this in a bad way either. It just simply goes to show that his emotional state is absolutely not some cold and icy one. I tried reassuring him that he was not broken, but ultimately that's something he's going to have to accept on his own. It was funny though, at the end of the conversation I had apologized for pulling him into my fight. He told me that I never had to apologize to him. Hem, take your own advice!
 
After sleeping, the group found itself gathered around the fireplace. The others had each dreamed of gods. Hem had a conversation with Ki, Arvenna talked to Eilistraee, and Skolvar spoke with Eilistraee and Kord. Through these conversations, it was told to them that my fight was to be their fight as well. All of us were supposed to fight the elder gods. I guess it was official, I pulled them into the fight. Well, to give myself credit, it's not my fault the elder gods decided to attack this plane as well. But, had they come because the son of their enemy was here, I guess that would make sense. Anyways, Eilistraee had told them that while she understood why I was keeping it all a secret, the party needed the information and thankfully, wouldn't die upon learning it. Kord even said he was wanting to fight them as well! That was good to hear seeing as the gods of Prism simply "gave" their blessings to mortals to fight if they helped at all. So I filled everyone in on "the unspeakable one" and the war that was waged on Prism. Thankfully, rather than cowering at the thought of gods stronger than the gods they served, they kept asking questions and were more curious than anything. They wanted to be part of the fight. Giving them this information was a huge weight off my shoulders. Suddenly, Mystvale felt less lonely. It wasn't me against the forces that took my father away, trying to protect everyone while keeping them uninformed. Someone knew what I was going through. Somewhat, anyway. Although, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was being watched during that conversation. It started when I said the name of "the unspeakable one" and I wasn't too surprised, but still on edge. Apparently, when Gremory had first heard the names he felt that way too. The only difference is that it didn't go away for him. It was at this point though that a frantic knock was heard at our door. Odessa had ran to our home from town, a journey that normally takes a few hours. "Jenel is in trouble" was all she had to say to get us running over to town.
 
The run was suspenseful. We weren't told why Jenel was in trouble, and if she really was, then we were definitely going to be late. If Odessa came as soon as she knew Jenel was in trouble, it would take her four hours to get to our home and then another four for us to get to town. But we ran as fast as we could, and upon arriving at the church I felt terrible. Had I spoken up during the trial, perhaps Jenel wouldn't have been taken away. Had we not decided to rest, we might have followed her into town to make sure everything was alright. Had we done ANYTHING other than sit around at home, we might have been able to help Jenel. But we didn't. And because of that, Jenel had endured what looked like hours of being beaten, tortured, and raped. Just taking one look at the state she was in while bound to the pillory confirmed this. An angry mob surrounded her, and much to our surprise, Father Miller was next to her. He had cast some sort of fear spell and was trying to ward the mob off. He succeeded as we got there. As we freed Jenel, the crowd ran off. What bothers me most about all of this is not the fact that we messed up and not the fact that the town abused Jenel. It was that as we arrived, Jenel was singing a song of forgiveness. Forgiveness?!? All of us were ready to "forgive" the town by placing a blade to their throats! They would pay, but it would have to come later. We took Jenel into the church so we could clean her in the fountain.
 
Finally, as Arvenna was cleaning her, Jenel stopped asking for us to forgive the town. She broke down, trying to cut her hair off for reasons we all could assume. Thankfully, Arvenna was able to calm her down a bit, saving the rest of her hair that we knew Jenel cherished greatly. We all grew closer because of this. For some, it was because they knew they had to get revenge for what had happened to their dear friend. For others, it was because we were there for each other, or at least we were there in the end. To me, it was more of the former, but a bit of both. While I may keep most of my life secret to these people I've come to live with for almost a year now, we are all close and here for each other. And it's because of that that I've decided to get revenge for who was behind this. It didn't make sense, raping Jenel. If the town really didn't like her, they would have just killed her. She was convicted with Pelor's blessing according to Father Miller. Someone was behind this. Someone who hated Jenel and wanted to take power away from her rather than just getting rid of her. I could be wrong, but there's currently only one family in my mind that fits that description. The Millers. Father Miller was protecting her by the time we got there, and due to the events I will soon describe I believe him to not be completely at fault. It's because of him that she was in the pillory, but my theory is that he was being used. Then there's Dana, the "witness" who backed up the rumor of Jenel performing a dark ritual. But as long as I've known Dana she hasn't hurt anyone. I think she's in the same boat as her father, still at fault for being part of the conviction but having been used by someone else. Who does that leave? Denise Miller. She hates Jenel, obviously has ties to the church of Pelor, could reasonably have control over her husband and daughter, and might have access to magic in order to fabricate the dream Arvenna and Father Miller had. Super sleuth Lance is on the case, and hopefully in my next few journal entries I will be able to say that my investigation was a resounding success. But more on that later. This story isn't done yet.
 
After Jenel's breakdown, she passed out. We dragged one of the church pews into the library so that she could rest while not being in the main hall of the church. Father Miller was the only other person in the building and he had some questions to answer. However, I was exhausted. I didn't get any sleep so I told the others I would stay with Jenel and keep an eye on her since I probably wouldn't be much help in the questioning. So I took Arvenna's place and sat with the sleeping Jenel on the pew. Well, drow don't sleep, they trance. So it's more accurate to say that Jenel was meditating and could hear everything going on. But I let her rest, dagger at the ready in case anything happened.
 
It hadn't seemed like much time had passed when I heard the sound of the church bell. Now, this isn't like a church from Prism that occasionally rings the bell for various different reasons. In Briarcreek, the church bell is rung when the heavy mist is coming. Jenel immediately woke up and tried to get me to help the others, but I wasn't going to leave her alone. I opened the library door and stood in the entry, a tired and exhausted guard doing his best to protect a friend. But when I opened the door, I was greeted by the screaming of Father Miller. He was grasping at his head, clawing at his skin. Skolvar brought him into the library and Arvenna followed (Hem was not with them), but as they did so a large ornate burial shroud materialized and began to cloak Father Miller. As soon as it did so, he stopped yelling. He stopped clawing at his face. He simply stood there. I suppose it was tradition at that point, but I used my magic to blow off the hood so we could converse. However, its mouth was sewn shut. While we could have tried conversing with pen and paper, we noticed that the shroud was beginning to turn gold. It looked like we only had a minute, so Skolvar went to find Hem as we got a few answers out of the figure.
 
Simple questions, simple answers. That was the game. Skolvar and Hem returned as Arvenna and I were bombarding the figure with questions. It served "the unspeakable one," did not want that service to end, wouldn't attack us, didn't know what would happen after the shroud turned gold, and more. We asked a lot of questions. Honestly, I had half a mind to let the transformation complete. According to Hem, the golden shroud figure could speak. That conversation would hopefully shed light on a lot of what was going on, but the others had an idea. They started lifting the shroud off of the figure. This revealed countless black toothy maws on the underside. Eyes, a void. All telltale signs of the strongest elder god. The top of the pantheon. I warned the others, but seeing as they had it under control I asked my final question. Unfortunately, whoever we were talking to did not recognize dad's name. I'm sure the gold one would have, but the others pulled the shroud off of the figure which revealed a very injured Father Miller. Eyes missing, mouth sewn shut, bite marks all over. The shroud on the other hand had been thrown to the edge of the room and was slowly making its way back towards us. We attacked it, making sure not to stay within reach until it was ultimately torn to shreds by Arvenna. Skolvar decided to take what was left of the shroud, roll it up, and carry it around. But that thing is not staying with us. I'm burning it before we leave whether he likes it or not.
 
I was surprised that I was still up at that point. The burial shroud had been torn to shreds, Father Miller had his injuries healed and I was absolutely ready to pass the fuck out. But there were some concerns. First of all, Hem had noticed that one of the statues that could be seen through the large window in the back of the main hall was moving. Second, there was a loud pounding heard from the room just across from us, the room where the body of the child Skolvar had apparently killed was. I was afraid that it had a burial shroud too, and seeing as Father Miller's was destroyed perhaps whatever was behind the door was undergoing the same golden transformation process. So, seeing as the immediate threat was the one within the church, we opened the door and were greeted by a large child, larger than all of us. Combat started with an ear piercing wail from the child, knocking Arvenna and Skolvar unconscious. Hem was still up and fighting and Jenel ran over as soon as she saw the others go down. While it was certainly troublesome, we defeated the creature and it dissipated into mist. That was the last thing I remember.
 
Eventually, I woke up. I felt well rested, thankfully, but needed time to think. I took out my lute and played one of mom's songs, one she called The Parting Glass. I really like that one. It's relaxing, just what was needed in that moment. I tried playing it quietly so that I didn't disturb anyone. I also didn't want to make light of the shitty situation we found ourselves in. Meanwhile, Skolvar and Hem had gone to survey the building while Arvenna went to help Jenel. Once everyone reconvened they discussed with Father Miller and began formulating theories. I didn't participate in most of the discussion. Sure, I had told the others about the threat we were up against, but we didn't have time to go into everything I knew. So rather than asking questions right away, I started piecing together my own theories. It had come to light that Father Miller remembered nothing after the mist bell was rung. Everything between the shroud appearing on him and being taken off was void from his memory. I guess that makes sense, seeing as the figure said we weren't speaking to him anymore. What he did tell us though was that he had a dream. This dream was so scary that just the thought brought terror to him. My bet is that the gold figure appeared in his dreams, or perhaps some horror related to it. This reminded me of the story of Bridgewater, specifically of what happened to David Baker. Seeing as i'm writing this for you, mom and dad, I don't have to go into all the details of that story. But just for my own point of reference, the connection was that both David Baker and Father Miller had been "taken" by the enemy, experienced a dream, and refused to talk about it. What happened to David? Well, David's not around anymore. Neither are most of his kids, and that's all because of the enemy.
 
I told this story to Father Miller. Yet, despite how powerful that story is, despite how clearly it defines what would happen if he didn't speak, he remained quiet. With an audible gulp, he stood up in a panic and dashed for the door. He evaded Skolvar's tackle and left the room.
 
*Will pick up from here with journal 4*