Session 35: Visiting Sohmweyr Part 3

General Summary

OOC - Logistical Discussion - Rules of Acquisition

Due to some friction in Session 34, we discussed making a few amendments to how Loot and Wishlisting is handled. The main upshot was the following adjustments:

• Discovering an item in a shop doesn't confer any primacy on the person who discovered it in cases where it's on multiple wishlists.
• Additionally, the GM will alert players who discover items on other PCs wishlists that those items are wishlisted by other people (a slight piercing of the GM screen, but a reasonable accommodation to prevent issues).

OOC Discussion - Next Destination

Recent Sendings to/from Mia indicated that the (relatively) nearby Leng/Estimarth was the next major stop. However, there's been some apparent miscommunications regarding distance that have caused some murky understanding of relative proximity and potential threat level. Per a discussion with the player for whom this figures into their backstory:

• How far away is it?
It's far enough away that it's out from under the eyes of the town guard and the elders (hence the "hey, I can take care of myself" aspect of it). If it's too close that doesn't really track.Not so far away though that the distance itself is a bar - there and back between market days, maybe even get something to sell for enough cash to go independent!
• If it's been visited many times, what is known about it?
There's definitely some ruins for folk to poke around in. It's not crawling with any particular creeps that folk regularly encounter, but there's some wild animals or the occasional bandit or scavenger that show up there from time to time.
• How old we/are the people who make this journey?
Mid-teens, mostly - kids that are ready to show they can do something without needing adult help (usually in a small group of peers, potentially ranging in age a bit) but not so young that being out of sight would be an immediate cause for alarm.
• How often does it happen?
Every few years - the ones who have been probably don't go back, and the village probably only generates one or two peer groups for it every few years.
• Do people still find stuff there? If so, why has it not been picked clean?
Folks don't always find anything of note, but there are occasional finds of things that were clearly dropped or left for some reason. People seem to think they have pretty well cleared the place, but sometimes there's gear lying there that wasn't there last time (not usually anything truly powerful, but scavengable goods worthy of sale or use). Maybe bandits move through, or someone stashes stuff there to pick up later, or something like that.

Finally, there's a minor point that has gone largely undiscussed - while Sunny and Moon saw a ruined sign mentioning Leng, it's not confirmed that the sign itself was found inside Leng... it could have been indicating "Leng is this way" but it was in bad shape and found on the ground.

Prior Session Summary

3 points. It was a little janky and took a bit of prodding, but it's been a bit since the last session, so that was to be expected.

Late Morning, Clothday, 23rd Leafbreak

In town

Finishing up with the elders

Maya advises the Sohmweyr Elders that he's planning to bless the farms in the local area via Plant Growth (DnD Beyond). The elders seem quite grateful and quasi-subtly allude to hoping that Maya will return for another application of the spell next year. They suggest having Clouded Summit attach a town guard to keep an eye on Maya while he does the cast, and the druid accepts this idea.
When Leucis picks up the Skymaul, the stormcloud head of the maul glows silvery around the edges briefly, as though lit from behind by the full moon. The cleric gets the impression that it recognizes him or his tie to Selune in some way. Making contact with the weapon and feeling its magic, it strikes Leucis as a bit unusual that none of the deities (that he knows of) in the Sky Pantheon are notable for their use of thunder and lightning.
Blaze comments on how cool this weapon is and expresses his excitement at seeing the party fight. Sunny and Saf explain that he's going to be doing some fighting with them, which takes the wind out of his sails a bit.

Maya performing a long cast

Maya is setting up to "bless the land" when an owlin town guard shows up. He introduces himself in a high and reedy voice as Tarek Simmot, sent by Clouded Summit to keep an eye out during the lengthy spell. Maya, ever the direct sort, asks what he is and where he came from. Maya establishes what he needs Tarek to do while he performs the spell, and Tarek agrees to keep his eyes on for the duration. The druid offers to provide dinner after, and the owlin guards posts up on a nearby branch to monitor. After several hours have elapsed and it's nearly sundown, Maya completes the casting. Tarek is perched on a nearby limb, keeping watch with a single open eye. When Maya stretches out his limbs, Tarek's other eye pops open. They confer briefly on the nature of talking to spirits of the world, and Maya wildshapes into a lizard. After a little shock, the druid is able to communicate his situation to the guard and hitches a ride on Tarek back to the common house.

Sparring and weapon practice

The group relocates to the town's approximation of a practice yard (a few sandbags on rope to swing at people, some straw dummies for sparring, etc.) on the northeast side of Sohmweyr near some trees. Stout "Red" Redwood shows up with some knuckledusters and greets Sunny warmly. When the bard mentions the intent that Blaze pick up some lessons, Red throws in that "bruises are lessons, boy" before heading off to practice on a dummy.
Harb takes off his long coat, turns it inside out and hands it from a branch to allow anyone to use his arsenal for practice. Sunny focuses on coaching Blaze, getting him across from several fighters and offering pointers. Leucis and Kolvonnin do a little friendly sparring, and the cleric is clearly a little off balance with the change out from shield to a two-handed weapon. Clouded Summit makes a notably good showing of herself, and the other Sohmweyr Town Guards are also fairly capable.
The group picks up that the town is largely either past their prime (tending towards being competent enough in a scrap but a little slower or weaker than they might otherwise be) or the untried (enthused but unskilled), and the folks showing up to the practice reflect that. There are a few minor cuts and scrapes (and one combatant with Red loses a tooth due to a poorly chosen dodge), and Blaze winds up a bit humbled by the experience.
Kolvonnin and Blaze team up against the available town guards; Summit spins past the paladin in the rush and puts Blaze on his back, but he gets close with a wild swing so she's suitably impressed. Summit and Kol confer about the combat - Summit admits four to one, one of the guards would get past. Kol admits that he just wanted to verify that Blaze wouldn't run.
As the day draws towards a close, the villagers disperse back to their tasks. Harb pulls Kolvonnin aside.

Harb uncovered

Harb explains that he hasn't been able to find an next of kin for the prior owner of the ersatz eye, so he'll need a hole put in his skullcap to accommodate it. Kolvonnin indicates that his smithing tools should suffice for the task, and they move a short distance away from the rest of the group to go about this.
Harb pops off his skullcap, revealing a fist-sized hole that goes all the way through his head. Blaze is put off by this to the extent that he starts to retch. Kolvonnin, looking at the plate, says:

Harb, you have my utmost respect. I've seen many a man laid low with significantly less damage.

Kol tries to line up where the eye would go in the not-really-a-socket, and Harb put the prosthetic near the appropriate location - while there's not really anything for it to attach to, he can sense a "correct" location, and proceeds to put it into place.

Harb seats the ersatz eye

Round 1

When the eye makes connection in the gap where it should sit, Harb is unexpected stung by psychic damage and stunned. A gurgling, bubbling noise with a waft of oily smoke emerge from the hole in his skull, and sparks leap between the eye and the flesh.
Kolvonnin jumps in to support Harb, makes a quick attempt to ascertain what his ailment is but can't reach any solid conclusions. He calls over his shoulder for the cleric.
Leucis attempts to determine what sort of magic is at play here - while it looks like attunement, this is unlike any attunement he's ever seen. He calls out to Sunny for another opinion.
Sunny is similarly confused, takes up a position between Harb and Blaze (who's still working hard to keep his lunch down).
Saf, at some distance and a bit occupied with her practice, hears the commotion and looks over to see the (unexplained to her) giant gap in Harb's skull and runs over to be of what assistance she can.

Round 2

Harb experiences some split vision and a nigh-unbearable white light. He suffers some more psychic damage with a wince, croaking "Pain... blinding pain...."
Kolvonnin notes that Harb's "normal" eye is glazed over and fluttering a bit. The paladin calls upon Pelor for Lesser Restoration (DnD Beyond), but can't tell if it helped.
Taking a similar approach, Leucis channels the power of Selune to Remove Curse (DnD Beyond) without clear effect.
Sunny pulls out Deep Rumble and plays an upbeat tune as a counter-charm and passes along bardic inspiration to Harb in his trials.
Blaze seems to take some solace from Sunny's music, and asks a few questions of Sunny.
Saf takes a swing at the ersatz eye with the flat of Excowlibur and makes a solid connection, but isn't able to dislodge the eye. She elects to bodily grab the eye with her hand, gets it in her fist but lacks the strength to move it.

Round 3

Harb, buffeted by the efforts of his allies to help, struggles to make sense of his experience. He's able to shake off being stunned, but the new sensory input is disorienting. His new eye cycles rapidly through images, some recognizable and others less so. The image in the eye settles on the temple of Ioun from his memory, specifically the three eyes on the walls - amber, clear crystal, clouded onyx. Kolvonnin notes that Harb has recovered some of his faculties and seems to be recovering, or at least not visibly suffering more damage. He leans in to help Saf in pulling out the eye.
Leucis tries to read Harb's state, and gathers that he's confused about what's happening, plus he's wincing a little as though something is stuck in his eye (and it obviously is - Saf's hand is very much there). The cleric elects to step around behind Harb and pull in the opposite direction as the rogue and paladin.
Sunny bestows bardic inspiration on Saf for her efforts to wrestle the eye from the socket. He also advises Blaze to prepare to run if things go sideways.
With Kolvonnin's aid and Leucis counterpulling Harb's trunk, Saf heaves mightily against the eye, but thier combined efforts only seem to cause Harb some pain as he's being pulled apart - some bones in his spine pop as he's stretched to his limits.

Round 4

"I am myself!" Harb exclaims, finding his voice and holding up his one hand. Seeing darkness with a hint of light through Saf's fingers in the ersatz eye momentarily, it's quickly replaced by a new image. As though through a pane glass coated in of rich honey, he sees:

Captain Jaxazat and his crew on the deck of the Ironscaled Wave, unsure what to make of the stranger they've dredged from the sea floor.

It occurs to Harb that what he's seeing through the ersatz eye is actually the view from his (still present) right eye, since he can still see his nose to the left side.
Bystanders note that there's a honey-colored light coming from the ersatz eye in Saf's grasp.
Kolvonnin lets go of the rogue and Harb both, unsure what to make of the goings-on. Leucis does the same, asking Harb if he's got things under control - he returns a quick nod.
Sunny feels like the worst has passed, but keeps playing in case it's helping.
Saf tentatively releases the eye, initially averting her gaze in case it's blindingly bright and sheathing her shortsword. Determining it's not so harsh as to hurt her sight, she looks on a golden image of several sailors and a lizardfolk projected before Harb's face. Onlookers realize they're seeing what Harb sees through the eye.

A barrage of memories

The eye clears, and the vision in the new eye matches the flesh eye for a moment, and Harb experiences depth perception for the first time in...who knows how long. It's a bit disorienting, and he reels just a bit.
A moment passes.
Golden light fills the ersatz eye, and in it he sees:

Mia, looking a bit haggard from long research, with the faraway look she gets when she's trying to remember something she read.

He realizes he didn't have an eye on the left side when he saw this, either. The onlookers recognize Mia from their time in the Frosted Library at Grayhill.
The eye clears and again he sees what's before him for a moment. It's then quickly replaced with another amber image:

Sunny and Moon performing at The Saucy Winch.

A moment of clear vision as the image fades, then:

Captain Yok aboard the Chestnut Mare on the journey upriver, in golden light.

Once again the eye clears and Harb can see the rest of the group.

A final recollection

A new amber vision appears, this time at a disorienting angle - Harb is flat on his back in this memory, looking up in a dimly lit room. Just to the left in his field of view, behind the bridge of his nose, is a metal cylinder as wide as a fist. Following the line of it upward, it's joined to a set of wheels and gears. Harb doesn't see but he suddenly remembers hearing a slow drip from behind where he's lying. He also remembers a vague sense of immense pressure but no pain where that part of his head used to be - much like being squeezed.
In the vision, a shadowy figure looks on, the gestures of his skeletal hand aligned with the slow turning of the wheels on the press. Harb remembers thinking, when this was happening, that if the stranger killed him, he might escape and find help. But it seems the stranger knows that, so they're pressing out Harb's very essence while he's still alive.
Harb is able to call to mind a few related tidbits in the context of this memory:

• Harb remembered before (see Harb's Reminiscences) that made a deal with a devil (though that wasn't who ended up with the contract, it seems). He further remembers that what he offered was service, even unto death and beyond, in return for an end to his travels. He remembered someone collecting what was promised, and it melting his left arm. Based on the press, he realizes they didn't want the arm itself so much as the fluid in it - some vital essence in his body.
• Harb turns the memory of the press over and over in his mind. The shadowy figure is the same one from his earlier memory - the stranger who melted Harb's arm. Harb knew him as an archmage, but the details were very slippery. In the memory, the stranger looked like he was evaporating somehow. Recalling it again, Harb realizes the archmage wasn't evaporating but the illusion over him was and Harb had seen to the truth beneath. Harb knew the stranger more from his robes than the body beneath them, and Harb had started seeing through the illusion to the skeletal hand.
• Harb hadn't been able to recall what business the stranger in the robes had with him. But he now remembers that this archmage had been working for years towards casting a great and powerful spell. A few deities had lent powerful servitors to the endeavor; several relics and artifacts had been acquired to empower it (some few of which Harb played a part in getting). The last preparations were at hand, but it seems Harb still had a job that he wasn't aware of - that vital essence in his body was needed as an ingredient or component for this spell. But Harb doesn't know why.

The golden image projected from the eye, depicting the stranger and his press, fades from view, and Harb is left to his own devices. Stereo vision seems to be working for him, and onlookers see tendrils of gooey green lightning connecting the back of the eye to the inside of Harb's skull without clearly supporting it.
Harb turns to his companions and says "There's much to process here..." and unceremoniously walks off into the woods.

Potentially missed details

The rest of the party is shaken by this ordeal, and deal with it in their own way. Saf shakes off the strangeness of the event and goes back to practicing.
Sunny congratulates Blaze on not completely losing it. Blaze considers how odd this whole thing has been and realized that maybe he's less ready for the outside world than he thought. Sunny accompanies him back to Day's End.
Kolvonnin and Leucis tidy up the practice area and head back to town.

Collecting back at the common house

Maya and Tarek

Coming in from the woods, Maya inquires if Tarek will be available tomorrow for another casting in another place. The guard indicates that Summit may assign him again or someone else, but he'll check in.
Maya heads to the kitchen to make some more interesting food than is usually available. While the variety available isn't much to speak of, there is at least abundance. He shoos a few tabaxi away from one station and used his wok to pan sear some chow for the party, Tarek, and Bursk.

Saf and Bursk

Saf finishes up her practice, cleans up, does her nightly gambling with Bursk (who it seems got put through his paces by Red earlier in the day) and turns in early.

Kolvonnin and Leucis

Kol takes the time to put a hole in the skullcap for Harb with his smithing tools. Leucis gathers Harb's accoutrements and places them in the fighter's room, then spends some time in prayer about the recent events. After some reflection, he heads to the common room for the evening meal.
The two priests confer about the recent sparring session; Leucis admits that using the maul instead of a shield takes some getting used to. Kol feels obligated to pay the cleric back some of what was initially paid for the shield, as it was quite expensive, and hands over 20 platinum and 100 gold.

Sunny and Harb

Harb tries to process what he's seen, but isn't used to having so much show up so quickly. He was heartened by seeing Jaxazat again, even in a memory, and reflects on how isolated he's been before falling into company with the party at large. Realizing that his appearance would likely upset the locals, he stakes out the path towards Day's End in hopes of running across an ally.
Sunny, returning from taking Blaze home, spots Harb on the roadside. They confer a bit about getting Harb back into town, and Sunny lends him a colorful scarf to wrap as a cover over the head wound. The new look makes Harb look "even more like a pirate, bro" which is something of a shock to Harb, who doesn't think of himself as looking like a pirate. The return to the common house to confer with the rest of the group.
Harb gets his (modified) skullcap back from Kol and slides it into place. The paladin expresses some concern, but Harb claims he's feeling somewhat better and will explain further once the whole group is back together.

Next steps:

1. Continue in Sohmweyr.
   • Party conference on what happened to Harb
   • Visit the graveyard (Sunny).
   • Visit the various shops (Sunny+?)
   • Shop the Sohmweyr General Store and the Sohmweyr Market, especially on market day (Woodday).
2. Between session tasks:
   • Prep the next Wisdom of the Elders of Hearthstone (DM)
   • Be ready for Market Day (DM)
   • Lay the track to Leng/Estimarth (DM)
3. Out of Character tasks:
   • Work out the details of Sunny's excursion and how that may change the party's plan.
   • Distill notes on the seating of the eye, make sure it makes sense to the players
   • Determine any in-town activities your character needs to handle (shopping, questions, etc) and communicate with DM for planning purposes.

Session Feedback

Eddy: I was not expecting anywhere close to an info dump like that huge stretching scene. I feel like I took a large slice of the session as a result. Pretty positive and fun to get a lot of info.
Heather: The training scene and keeping Blaze out of trouble was fun. Scene with the eye was really neat, going through and seeing what skills might be useful, plus the descriptions of what he saw with the eye.
James: It didn't make sense for Maya to be in the scene with the eye, but it made sense for the character to be otherwise occupied. Maya tends to be in the spotlight a lot and was mostly out of the spotlight this session which was nice. I had fun discovering a new species. It was nice to get some glimpse into Harb's backstory, looking to unravel more of it in the future. Also looking forward to Market Day. Pacing wasn't bad for the infodump.
Jeremy: It's always nice to have a session after a gap. Interesting twists and turns, several fun moments. A bit of a slow start with the logistics stuff, but it went pretty quickly. Character dev, background, info dumps - everything went pretty well. Curious to see how it all unravels when it gets around to Harb explaining. So close to leaving Sohmweyr.
Matt: It was nice that while it was Saf's idea, she didn't take center stage in the practice/spar. Neat to see Maya go off and make a friend. How the Harb thing ended up from Saf's perspective was amazing (Focused on other things, look over at the concern tones used, giant hole in the guy's head! I'm no spellcaster, I'll just hit it really hard! I got to put my fist in someone's eye socket, it was awesome!) I didn't expect it to work, kinda surprised I didn't get punished for it, really. I don't really understand the infodump piece, as a player. At this pace, I expect to be all the way to the next spot around June?
Meg: It was very Harb-centered, but interesting story bits I'm looking forward to hearing more about. Sad I didn't get so smack Kol real good; looking forward to using the new weapon.
John: I did mention to Eddy that I had a scene planned for when the eye got seated; that's been cooking a while. Spotlight moving around and being largely on one person is definitely a thing, so expect to have a lot of screentime in the occasional session. It was nice that James picked up the "bird person living in a town full of cats" thing I did with Tarek. Saf damaged an ally, which I considered punishment enough in this instance. I'm planning some distillation bits of the infodump for consumability. The eye appears to be showing Harb things he can't recall directly, apparently by connecting to the part of him that's missing.

Notes

Seating the eye - potentially missed points

1. All the eye memories that I described with any detail were from the meat eye's POV. The last one (with the press) seems like it may have been right after Harb lost his original left eye.
2. The eye itself didn't see these things, but it's interfacing with or granting access to parts of Harb's memory that he can't directly reach himself.
• The part of the brain the eye "connects" to seems to be able to provide information, and has some information that Harb doesn't otherwise have. It also seems to be able to access everything Harb can remember.
• That's why it showed some scenes he has direct memory for, and at least one other (detailed) scene that he didn't directly remember.
• That's also why "Remove Curse" and whatnot didn't seem to help - the item isn't causing the issue, it's just been hooked up to some severely damaged hardware and the mind behind it is trying to adjust.
3. The memory from the Ioun temple with the three eyes signifies seeing the past, present, and future, and the amber eye is the "past" eye - early in the scene, the ersatz eye (or the brain behind it that Harb can't directly use) latched onto the "amber means past" as a means of conveying that it was showing memories. It then showed several things Harb can remember in amber before showing him something he previously couldn't recall in amber.
4. About the last scene specifically - the History roll gave Harb some additional context to go with what the eye allowed him to see.
• Harb's body contains some strange "essence" that was of value or use to the archmage in the memory.
• The archmage used a press to literally squeeze the juice from Harb's body without killing him.
• Harb remembered thinking if he were slain he could escape, but that the archmage knew enough not to do that.
• The archmage had some illusion over his appearance that Harb could partially see through, and the fact that the hand he can see is skeletal seems at odds with the archmage's presented appearance. At some point Harb knew the name the archmage used but hasn't been able to summon it up from his fractured memories.
• Harb remembers now that he did some work for this archmage (fetching powerful relics) in the service of a larger goal (years in the making that even some deities were assisting with). It turned out that the "essence" in Harb's body was to be collected as a component for this grand work of arcana - Harb didn't know until the archmage started to collect it, and he doesn't know why it was needed.