As day 4 of the week of nightmares approached, the party was tormented in sleep with their continued nightmares.
GB dreamt of the Beer Forge with pools of ichor covering the ground. Hot pokers stuck out of every surface and the many surfaces had been replaced with flesh. The central forge had a visage that was reminiscent of Ivy’s face and the fire was her eyes.
Oisin re-lived their death and all the events that occurred. Cyl painted on a canvas, but each stroke caused a chiseled line through her back. Still she kept painting. She couldn't stop. Nathan went berserk on what he thought were demons, but turned out to be the party. Connor found himself in old Cinderhaven, set upon by attackers of ice. His limbs fell off, splintering into small shards.
Rosie went downstairs and heard loud crunching. Her horse was chewing on something with blood and small bones. She came to, finding her rat safe on her shoulder.
Morning
Nathan arose after hearing Rosie get up. He grabbed Mags and headed out. GB pulled Purrl into his extradimensional space in his head and began heading out to check on Ivy and the Forge. He began to feel the space within his head getting heavier and a pounding began inside it, right in the middle of his forehead. It grew painfully hard until his whole head burst. Blood everywhere. Then no blood, no pressure, no sinews. It had been another waking nightmare. He continued through to the Beer Forge.
Cyl woke up at Dub’s parents’ house, having spent the night in his room, and went downstairs. Dub’s father wore a butcher’s outfit with a bloody apron and offered her Dub’s head fresh from the oven. Dub whispered “help me,” without moving. The nightmare state faded away and revealed a roast vegetable pan and his parents talking amongst themselves. She left quickly.
Connor dressed and left quickly. It was warm, midday, summer. He found himself in the real Cinderhaven, the old Cinderhaven—or maybe the present Cinderhaven. He felt that he was home for one moment, and then the city erupted in flame. In the distance, a figure wearing an odd helmet with a miniature horse. A stranger. He closed his eyes, centered himself, and opened them. He was back in the new, present Cinderhaven of his new party.
Oisin woke up, checked on Pinbol and the kittens, and left for his morning rituals at the Nature Temple. He was not visited by nightmarish visions. Mari found that Mawblade ate too much and had passed it to Nathan. It didn’t like Nathan, so it was passed to Rosie. It had wrapped itself around her face and was acting as a helmet with a second mouth, granting her a nasty bite attack.
Green Iron Village
Rosie trekked toward the Green Iron Village to speak with Boss. The path was dark, with only a sliver of a moon. After a time, she lost her path, missing the marks on the trees. She continued on, finding that she was truly lost and began finding new tree species. She thought she recognized where she was—two weeks away at the edge of the banyan forest and the start of an evergreen forest.
She turned and found herself fully inside the evergreen forest. Turning more, her footsteps no longer seemed to lead to where she was. She heard the crunches of footfalls following her; she pushed her horse to a run. Abruptly, the horse threw her and fled into the wood. She landed on a lump in the snow. A rotten tortle face appeared, a hand grabbed her hand. She struggled as it pushed her face into the snow.
As she began to feel smothered, the vision ended and she was safe on her horse on the path. She finished making her way to the village and spoke to Boss about having the goblins help her build a house. Then she headed for the Beer Forge.
Beer Forge
Connor arrived to find the bar about an eighth full. He found Ivy drinking coffee. GB arrived and comforted Ivy, who also comforted him. Cyl arrived and let them know that Dub had not changed. He was still stuck in his nightmare. Oisin arrived and the party commiserated with each other over their struggles with the nightmares. Nathan arrived and they discussed where to go.
The party headed out of the Beer Forge to research the lich Kahlqua, Eater of Dreams, at the library. They ran into Rosie on her horse, and in her Mawblade helm. Connor was terrified, reminded of his nightmare and the rider on a miniature horse. Rosie was upset by his reaction and she explained her nightmares. Mawblade entered the conversation as they discussed the coming of the lich and the other devourers.
The Library
Kythra, the librarian, knew the name Kahlqua. Kythra explained that Kahlqua was a female and that she had come to fear her. Kahlqua meant “being of the void.” She said Dub was the conduit for Kahlqua. Kythra said that Kahlqua saw the benefit the party had gotten from Dub’s visions, little as it may have been, as a debt that was owed to her. She was going to come collect the debt. Kythra said she could help no further and asked them to leave. They went outside to discuss things more.
Outside the Library
The party talked to Mawblade about its motivations and Kahlqua. In the process, the party spoke of trying to eventually imprison or destroy the blade. It eventually became angry and struck out at Connor, luckily missing its target. Mawblade eventually said that it was all we would need because it knew where Kahlqua kept “his” phylactery. Mawblade did not explain everything and admitted that he did not want them to understand what Kahlqua would do to get to Cinderhaven before Kahlqua showed up. He felt that, if they knew, then they might try to stop it before the lich showed up. Mawblade implied that killing the conduit, Dub, would be bad for its plans—maybe stopping the lich from showing up.
Mawblade began talking about wanting to eat, and possibly telling the party more if they fed him. Mawblade said that eirshale sated it more than anything else. It demanded food and Cyl, reluctantly, gave the blade the raw eirshale from the new goa’s hair shavings. She still had it from their recent visit to the second goa nation.
In exchange, the Mawblade told them that Kahlqua puts the phylactery inside the heart of the conduit. It would show up tomorrow morning along with a small scar on Dub’s chest. It would stay there until Kahlqua removed it violently from his chest.
The party discussed trying to plan how to get the phylactery from Dub’s chest once it appeared. The Mawblade said that Kahlqua showed up in different ways based on the conduit. It implied that the drawing that Cyl was putting together might be connected to where it would show up. The party would have to get the phylactery, feed it to the Mawblade, and then kill the lich. The Mawblade said that a ritual of transference would do the trick, but he did not go into the details.
The Library
The party went back into the library and asked Kythra how to do a ritual of transference to remove a phylactery from a person’s chest. She gave them a book that would teach them. The party would need a being of average human intelligence to get the ritual to work to receive the phylactery. Nathan looked through the book and was able to determine it was one ritual in the whole book. The ritual would take 12 hours and would require some relatively common components that could be purchased from Arlund’s. The party also learned that Kahlqua was trying to become an avatar of Rinth. She first started this 50 years ago.
GB realized that the Dream spell would allow him to talk to Dub. He voiced that and, though she tried to remain stoic, Kythra’s eyes betrayed her by indicating her safe, which stood open. Rosie feinted leaving and stealthed over to the safe. GB and the rest of the party continued talking with her. Kythra said she had an item that would help with entering Dub’s dreams but she needed it and she was leaving town. Kythra said that Kahlqua believed herself to be equal to her god Rinth. She was fanatical and focused.
While this discussion occurred, Rosie stole the box that Kythra had looked at from the safe successfully and hid it on her person. Oisin, Nathan, and Connor noticed but remained silent. Cyl and GB did not know. The party left, bidding Kythra a fond farewell.
Arlund’s Alchemical Oddities
The party went to Arlund’s and purchased a scroll of Dream for 880gp. During the transaction, Rosie did not say anything about the box she had stolen. Oisin, Nathan, and Connor followed Rosie’s lead at the time and said nothing about the box. Outside the store, Rosie told the party that she’d stolen the item from the safe and they discussed what to do next. They decided to head to Dub’s.
Dub’s House
GB began ritually casting identification on the box that Rosie had stolen. The party noticed that Cyl’s work on the puzzle seemed to have progressed while she was gone. The puzzle appeared to be putting itself together, but Dub had not moved. The puzzle pieces Dub had drawn were riddled with conjuration magic, per Nathan’s detect magic.
The magic box Rosie took from Kythra was invisible to Nathan’s detect magic though. GB’s ritual failed in the same way, almost as if someone counterspelled him. Rosie opened it and removed the item from the box. It was a nightcap.
As the party tinkered with the, likely magical, nightcap, another piece of paper slid into place on its own. The identification spell told them that the nightcap could cast dream once a week and it recharged based on the moon phase. Cyl put the cap on, lied down next to Dub, and thought of him.
She found herself blinded by light. She saw silhouetted mountains in the distance. Eirshale was underneath her feet and stretched on forever. Dub screamed “NO!” in the distance and Cyl ran. She ran, and ran, and ran. “No, not like this!,” from the other direction. Then, again. And, again. Hours passed.
Suddenly, she stopped and found herself next to the mountains. Dub’s body, turned to blightshale, lied next to her. Then, she awoke and half her body was decayed with the blight. Then, Dub was next to her and they spoke.
Dub believed her to be dead. Cyl convinced him that she was Cyl and that they could fix it. She explained the situation with the lich. Dub kept getting distracted by Cyl’s dead body, which lay nearby. She got through to him—fight the Dream Eater, don’t move if he felt something in his chest, be brave.
Dub expressed “I don’t matter.” His only thought was saving Cyl. “She’s the only thing I’ve ever cared about.” “I don’t know why she cares about me.” They embraced. Cyl woke up.
GB took Rosie’s Mawblade. It didn’t find him compatible at first, but after a brief talk, decided that GB was workable enough to accept as a host for a time. It wrapped around his maw as an extra set of teeth. The party dispersed.
As Cyl was winding down for the night, a wind slid through the window and pushed more pages together.
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