Session 90: What Is a Man But the Sum of His Memories?
General Summary
Pandemonius is more than willing to spill some details on the Horned King once I hand over my bribe. He tells us that the king is a Tane, which is a type of powerful fey created by the fey equivalent of gods to act as living weapons. His specific kind, the Whisperers, live in terrain far too dangerous for other beings to traverse and slowly drive their targets to madness. Attempting to control his mind would be useless and cold doesn't affect him at all. When I ask Pandemonius to come along to back us up, he understandably declines. If we all die, somebody needs to stay behind to see SOFT's plans through. We don't have a plan thought out for meeting with the Horned King and while that normally wouldn't be an issue, Rikius is tired of us blindly walking into every situation.
Elathera has the brilliant idea of turning me into an arrow so Rikius can fire me at the king, allowing me to claw him up immediately afterwards. Our dreams are dashed once Industria points out that becoming an arrow will render me unconscious...forever. Rikius crafts a slayer arrow instead and we spend these next two days pointedly not making a plan despite his concern. Upon stepping back into the Feywild though, Industria comes up with something, only for it to fall apart when we realize not all of us have a means of escape if the odds are against us. A buddy system it is!
Those of us who don't have access to plane shifting magic are paired up with someone who does. It's a very basic plan for a worst case scenario, but planning isn't exactly the strong suit of a group of people who break reality on a constant basis. All of this worrying is for nothing though because the Horned King genuinely wants to hear us out, though he's a bit startled by the presence of our backup. We don't excuse them though because the walls of the throne room are littered with creatures disguised as plants, with undead wrapped up in their vines. On asking about Exius' soul fragment, we're told that it's become its own person, resurrected into the ranks of the Wild Hunt.
When Exius is called in to meet us, it creates a fierce moral dilemma for all of us. While Industria and Elathera wish to reunite him with his other soul fragments, I peer into his mind and realize that he is truly content with his new life. Industria says it's not right to leave him as he is because he's a broken soul who doesn't realize what he's missing. Even still, I think a broken soul has a right to its existence, especially considering that this Exius has his own memories and feelings. It becomes a sore spot for all of us and after a private conversation, Exius hesitantly agrees to be reunited with the rest of his soul if he can take the Horned King's place. It's enough of a thread for us to follow and so we leave.
I express doubts about piecing Exius' soul together because of what we saw in the Akashic Records, which also has me doubting Iolond's willingness to help us alter reality. Industria has had those same doubts, so without alerting Elathera, we visit Bibiana in Heaven. We pick her brain about Exius, learning that he transcended the concept of morality and as such, no one was sure where his soul belonged after death. Divine beings wanted to snatch it up for themselves, so the gods shattered his soul to ensure the balance between good and evil remained equal. After we leave, we realize our mythic abilities have been stripped from us.
The most likely source of this severance being Altamere, so we call up the rest of the party and confront him with Sabella by our sides. He says we gained such powers in order to see the war through and since it's been over for so long, it's about time we lost access to what was supposed to be temporary to begin with. We argue back and forth with him, each of us proving why we need or deserve our powers. He gives it back to us one by one, everyone earning theirs for good reason, leaving me and Lucky left. Lucky's given theirs back when Sabella says that they gained their divine abilities elsewhere and I earn mine after lashing out over my cursed bloodline. Altamere also has the decency to free me from said curses, so we find a place to gather our thoughts before heading home.
Elathera's worried that our ties to our divine powers will be ripped away again, prompting Iolond to appear and offer to reinstate our power should Altamere, or anyone, take it away. They also grant us a bit of extra power as a show of good faith. With that matter settled, we update Pandemonius on the situation and rest up.
Character(s) interacted with
Rikius Falenmir
Jordeira Ferus
Lucky Kociak
Sabella
Pandemonius
Iolond
Altamere
Bibiana
Exius
Tacitus
Jordeira Ferus
Lucky Kociak
Sabella
Pandemonius
Iolond
Altamere
Bibiana
Exius
Tacitus
Report Date
26 Dec 2021
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