System Agnostic/Episode Three: Runic Secrets

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Episode 3 sees Aaron Duscalla trying to get some work done, to no avail. The doorbell to his home sounds, snapping him out of his thoughts. As he heads towards the door, he passes a painting in his house depicting a large colorful tent surrounded by verdant foliage.

The camera zooms in on the tent, bringing the viewer back to the adventuring party as they seek out Artagan Branch, the elf linguist Syr Lokord told them about. They approach the tent hesitantly, noticing the inordinate amount of smoke pouring from it. Rooney thinks something inside might be on fire, and the group rushes into the tent.

They’re met by massive and varied piles of junk that, in their own way, still bear some semblance of organization. They also see a red-haired wood elf reclining and smoking an impractically long pipe, who distractedly confirms he’s Artagan.

It quickly becomes apparent Artagan has clearly been smoking more than just the pipe in his hand, and for quite some time. Kyuri declares his approval, while Domus presents the axe haft to the elf. Artagan sits up to inspect it, dumping the contents of his pipe in the process. Kyuri offers to help, and fetches more plants from outside the tent.

Artagan informs the party the haft is magic, but the magic is “sleeping.” He adds that several other runes are *not* magic, and promptly starts licking them. After Kyuri returns with more “organic enlightenment” for Artagan’s pipe, the elf explains some of the runes are in Deep Speech, which is odd as the language has no written counterpart and dates back to the time when Beholders freely roamed the planet. He then poses a question for the ages: “What do you think came first, the Beholders of the Beholden?” The party has no ready answer for this. The elf adds that the language must have been imprinted onto the haft.

Artagan licks the haft once more before returning it to the party. Kyuri decides he’d like to party with the elf in the future. Chonnnk misunderstands, thinking the sorcerer means a “stick party” and rolls outside to find one. Artagan then (very) briefly seems to sober up as he poses another question: “Have you ever noticed how some people are actually different people—and they don’t even know?” Again, the party has no answer.

Referring back to the haft, or “fancy stick”, Artagan says he can try to translate the runes, or help the party do so so. Rooney asks how, and the elf rummages through his junk pile to pull out a surprisingly well cared-for box. Inside it is a smaller box with strange tubes. Artagan calls it a “huminifier” among other things, and says he only uses it on special occasions because it blew up once before. He gently pulls out a bag of what he labels “vision smoke” and places it atop the box, telling the others he’ll take the trip with them because “this is the good stuff.”

The group agrees to embark on the vision quest. Devon begins chewing on Artagan’s leg, but Chonnnk’s tasty book directs the maw demon’s attention away from the elf. Kyuri stations a bear from his Bag of Tricks to stand guard outside the tent before the “trip.”

Artagan open the bag and sprinkles a small amount of powder into the box. He lights the device, and the dark smoke fills the tent. When it clears, the party finds themselves in an overly opulent and gaudily decorated space that smells clean, but carries a subtle scent of brimstone. Kyuri recognizes it as his mother’s study in his childhood home. The group also realizes Domus and his maw demon didn’t come with them—and neither did Artagan. Rooney also points out the haft is missing.

Kyuri’s mother arrives in the room and addresses him. He realizes this seems to be a memory of the moment he told his mother he was leaving the family and responds accordingly. His mother defends the deals the family has made with the devils roaming the continent, arguing that they helped solidify the Essler’s standing in society and she only did what she had to in order to protect her children. In her own words, the “devils are here to stay” and a countless number of monsters roam the lands. Kyuri’s response is less than tactful.

While they argue, Rooney searches the room for the haft. Chonnnk, on the other hand, is searching for his book and the stick he had found outside the tent before the trip began.

As he argues, Kyuri gets the odd sensation that, even though they’re *his* memories, it feels like those memories are from someone else’s life.

Chonnnk tries to lift up the desk, only to freeze in place. Rooney notices a gigantic great sword over the fireplace that can move—and kill—on its own. Looking more closely, he realizes the great sword’s handle is the axe haft they’re missing.

On second glance, Rooney also can faintly make out the tent still surrounding them all, including Artagan—who, for a moment, bears distinctly human ears. After a blink, the tent disappears again.

Kyuri is still trying to process the feeling that he isn’t part of the memory he’s replaying, even though it is indeed *his* memory. His mother is the one who freezes Chonnnk in place, at which point he understands it’s no longer just a memory or a bad drug trip; his mother is standing in front of him, in real time.

After more back-and-forth discussion that just barely manages to stay civil, she walks past Kyuri to retrieve the haft of karavox from the mantle. Rooney tries to grab it, but she teleports from his grasp; she tries to leave the room, but a shower of sparks that sends her backwards towards Chonnnk indicates she can’t exit, either.

Rooney tries persuading her to give the group the haft, admitting they need to translate the runes. She offers to help, in exchange for giving her the relic. Kyuri says there’s nothing the party wants from her. She insists everything she did was for the family, but he believes he and his sister were only bargaining chips. She counters they never were, but that she made a deal to bring him back from death—something he’d never heard before.

Everyone senses battle coming. Kyuri’s mother protects herself with mage armor, while Kyuri himself calls upon two old friends for help: his shadow hound, Kastrinal, and the spirit of a gold dragon called Iirtem. He asks the dragon to take the haft from his mother, to which Iirtem complies.

While Chonnnk is still paralyzed, Rooney distracts Kyuri’s mother with arrows. She still casts a cone of cold, catching Chonnnk, Kastrinal and Iirtem in the blast. The greatsword attacks Rooney, but he ducks out of the way.

Kastrinal manages to drag Kyuri’s mother down to the floor. Kyuri attempts to cast a spell to incapacitate her, but not kill her. She tries to dissipate it, but it reflects back on him instead. He just barely manages to absorb the magic without being injured by it. He asks Iirtem to give Rooney the haft.

Rooney strikes out at the greatsword, and it clatters to the ground. He puts the haft against his head and concentrates, but can’t decipher the runes.

Kyuri’s mother stands and unleashes another cone of cold, affecting Chonnnk, Rooney and Iirtem. Kyuri asks why she is the way she is, but she insists everything she did was for him and his siblings. He asks “What if we didn’t want these gifts?” to which she responds it’s not their choice. He counters that, in that case, she didn’t really do anything for their sake, but she’s adamant she did.

He refuses to attack her, but instructs Iirtem to keep her from casting again. He interprets that as an order to attack, and claws at her. Rooney readies a longbow in case she stands up again. She does so, and he hits her with more arrows.

Furious, she tells Kyuri to get out of the house. He asks why she never told him he’d died before, to which she retorts he never asked. Mother and son hold a brief, if sullen staring contest, before she declares she won’t give him what he wants. When he asks what that is, she replies “Seeing me in pain.”

As Kyuri realizes his mother is also stuck in the room just like they are, she attacks the party again. Chonnnk finally breaks free from the paralysis spell, sees the dragon and shadow hound, and assumes they’re new guests to the stick party. He rummages through his surroundings to find his book and stick.

Kastrinal drags the woman to the ground again. Kyuri begins looking for a way out, and comes to realize the haft is the key to their release; if this is his own memories, he has to be the one to touch it. The group’s surroundings start to fade, as do Kastrinal and Iirtem. But Kyuri sees the emotional toll their argument has taken on his mother, and understands she’ll remember him telling her he didn’t want the gifts she gave him.

The room melts away, and to Rooney, the aroma of the smoke filling Artagan’s tent turns into the alarming scent of fire—with enough heat behind it to burn an entire village. He glances up to see a massive red dragon glowering at him. Chonnnk comes face-to-face with the icy breath of a white dragon, and Kyuri turns to find a black dragon, both of which are staring the Aarakocra down. Rooney also notices a green and a blue dragon lurking at the edges of his vision.

The haft of karavox is once again out of the party’s grasp, sitting underneath the red dragon’s head. Rooney tries to move, but is paralyzed by fear. He manages to Misty Step over to the haft, but before he can retrieve it another dragon appears, bearing the five chromatic heads that indicate—whether real or not—Tiamat herself. Without looking at her, he grabs the haft. She reaches out to strike, but Rooney is faster, and the dragons disappear. The adrenaline rushes out of Rooney and he’s left shaking on the floor, exhausted.

The camera zooms out from the painting of the tent to rejoin Aaron as he opens his front door. No one’s there, but a package addressed to him is left on his doorstep.