From the top of a hill they saw a city under wards, and a great beam of light strike a terror between the stars.
446 PC, Ashfall 34-35
Dev
Draylor
Kalina
Magical feather token [taken to Eda for examination]
Dev
Dev’s letter to Sophia (unsent)
Ashfall 34th:
The rain was pounding against the lonely window in my office. The storm had been raging all day, the first one of the season according to Soren, the man who spent most of his lifetime surviving alone with his Orroks on the bordering Frostfield Plateau. I’ve been pouring through every record or scrap of paper I’ve managed to find that mentions life outside of the city post collapse, looking for a clearer picture of how the planar incursion started and how the people here fought it. I found a scribble left in the margin in some of Eda’s old notes from when she was cursed: "Initial symptoms of planar drift begin 3–5 years post-Collapse. Suggests the Verge was not instant, but started to spread."
This was interesting. I wanted to talk to Draylor to see if it lined up with his memory of our vision from the Mirror Stag, but I wasn’t sure if he’d come back from our fishing trip yet. I was just about to go ask Eda about it when Draylor turned up with Kalina. After he regaled us with tales of the further adventures I’d missed, we all went to talk to Eda. This was the first time Eda had met Kalina, and the elf charmed her.
Eda checked her files for information about the Mirror Stag: she told us that it was a construct of the Rootbound Circle, but she didn’t really have many primary sources about it. We shared what we’d learned with her, and she was very excited to update her files and confirm some theories. She noticed that the name “Rootbound Circle” didn’t really mean much to us, and Eda explained that it was formed in the 4th era in response to planar instability. Various druids, shamanic mages and planar scholars came together to combat planar interference caused by arcane disasters during the mid-Tharnic period.
Eda promised to look through the information she had and the new information we’d brought to her and see if she could point us toward any hints that might lead us to one of the other constructs like the Mirror Stag. She had a request for us, though: she wanted us to find more information about the Swan Merchant, a figure mentioned in multiple fragmentary sources, described as “the man in white feathers.”
Eda pointed us to Woodcrest Hollow, which had been the easternmost settlement in what is now the Twilight Forest. According to the Mirror Stag’s vision, this is where the shifting verge monoculture started to spread. We promised to head out in the morning.
Before we left, Draylor decided to ask Eda about her former boss, Cook. Eda picked up on Draylor’s one-sided relationship with Cook almost immediately thanks to the way he asked when Cook’s birthday is and what kind of gift that Cook would want. We just missed it – it was on Ashfall 14th – I understand Sarna had brought in a cake for him from somewhere or other, but I missed it when I was getting ready to go to Nettie’s poetry reading. And I just realized that Nettie’s Red & Blue series is inspired by Cook and Draylor. I don’t think I’ll be able to look at either of them again without thinking of it. At least Draylor didn’t seem to pick up on it.
Ashfall 35th:
We headed out early the next morning. It was about a half-day’s walk from Sifren to the edge of the Twilight Forest. It was largely uneventful, though we did encounter a couple of riftlings that we easily defeated. We’ve grown a lot over the last months - when we first arrived, the riftlings were terrifying.
Shortly after we reached the forest, I noticed a flickering in the trees - pale roots crawling on the ground, at least if you only looked at them out of the corner of your eye. If you tried to look directly at them, they were still. A few moments later, Kalina and I both started to notice things were repeating. We saw the same leaf, the same log, over again. I noticed right away that it was an illusion meant to keep us away from something.
Draylor cast a spell to speak with plants, and he gave the creepy trees a voice. “We are the forest,” they rustled. “We do not need a name.” “We hold back the void,” they said, over and over again. I broke through the illusion, and saw a clearing less than 20 feet from where we had been walking in circles. There was a small village in the clearing, with a meeting hall, a town square that was really just one post, and some houses. They were all in remarkably good shape, considering how creepy the rest of the forest looked.
I could tell instantly that this is the village the Mirror Stag showed us, and when I pointed it out to Draylor, he agreed. We could even see the bones of some of the people who lived here, laying where they fell when the plant avatars struck them down. Kalina noticed six pale trees inside the village that appeared to be similar to the ones in the Twilight Forest. I think I might have misinterpreted the fragment I found in my research about the six pale saplings - it probably was referring to literal trees – these trees. Draylor looked at the biggest of them, expecting to find records there. I was not surprised at his lack of success. I checked the meeting hall, but had no luck there either.
Draylor went back to question the trees again before his spell ran out, and we learned that they knew nothing about the Swan Merchant and that the Mirror Stag is their enemy. He tried to intimidate them to get more information, but that just caused them to perceive us as a threat and summon six plant avatars to send against us. These were the same kind of vaguely humanoid plant creatures that killed all of the village’s inhabitants.
I immediately cast fireball at the three creatures on my right. A ball of blue flame engulfed the plant creatures and burned away almost all of their bodies. One of the survivors charged towards me and put its hands into the ground, and a bunch of roots and twigs burst up from the ground to restrain me. Draylor used a lightning spell that I’d never seen him use before to take out a couple of others, and I finished the rest with magic missiles.
The trees accused us of calling the void. Maybe we did - Draylor theorized that the shifting verge monoculture may be protecting the Astral Plane from the incursion of part of the Prime Material Plane, much as the Mirror Stag is trying to protect the land from incursions from beyond our reality.
We went house by house and still failed to find records, but we did see a number of shrines to Selune. We also found a white feather pressed between two pieces of wood. It was slightly magical, meant to serve as a token. I wrote up a report of our findings for Eda and copied it to Steve. We also brought Eda the feather for inspection.
I will get back to you as soon as I can, but I want to keep exploring these aspects of the divine while I am here. Maybe I will even understand the meaning of it all someday. Dev
Filled with a new resolve Sir Harold consults the local wizard about settling an old debt. A series of letters are exchanged and a deal is offered.
446 PC, Ashfall 37
Sir Harold
Dev
Draylor
Magical ivory knife in the shape of a feather. Can be used with a mirror to summon the Swan Merchant [Dev, who was planning to take it to Ragnum for examination]
Dev’s Letter to Sophia
Ashfall 38
Dear Soph,
I’ve been helping Eda research some events in the early years following the Solaen Collapse, and Draylor has been looking through her collection of late Tharnic Empire elementary education material to see if he can learn more about other types of druids.
In a Peoples of the Republic volume, Draylor found some pictures of druids that fascinated him. The book mentioned Sylvana, the oak father, who lives in his elk kingdom, as being sacred to the druids of the time period, but Draylor kept insisting that it was wrong.
He brought the book to Eda to show her and nearly got his head handed to him for interrupting her research, but she was all excited as soon as she realized she had an enthusiastic audience for her thoughts on historical costuming. For some reason, they fixated on druidic undergarments and Eda pulled out issues of some late Tharnic fashion magazine. Draylor was fascinated by a picture of a prominent druid who was thought to be a member of a subversive group called the Rootbound Circle.
We were interrupted by Sir Harold, one of the members of the combat division, who had questions about a personal matter that he thought I could help with.
I’ll let you know if Draylor decides to adopt period clothing.
Your brother,
Dev
Letter to Eda from Dev
Ashfall 37th,Eda, I thank you for your discretion and for your assistance in my research efforts on the Rootbound Circle. I believe Draylor, Sir Harold and I met the Swan Merchant you’ve been looking into tonight. Here are my impressions.
The Swan Merchant
The individual I’m calling the Swan Merchant is a well-dressed elf with six fingers on each hand. We encountered him after Draylor found a white feather in his pocket. The feather cut Draylor’s hand and seemed to suck up a drop of blood without changing color. Intrigued, Draylor dipped the feather into a bottle of the midnight blue ink made from indigo and crushed moon flower leaves that I use to write in my spellbook. It sucked the bottle dry, again without any perceptible change in color. He set the feather down on a sheet of paper, and it started to write a note.
In a flowery, elegant script, we saw these words appear: “An invitation is needed for a bargain to be made. Upon a reflection, let this token be laid.”
Sir Harold snatched the feather and laid it on my hand mirror. Immediately after he did so, I perceived a power separating the Weave as though someone was pulling a cloth apart by the threads. A flame-like light circled the edge of my mirror, and it expanded until it was big enough for a person to step through.
An elf in a crisp, white doublet was suddenly present in my room with us. He smiled as if he knew a secret, and off-handedly said that he hadn’t been in these parts in about 100 years. “I heard some little worms are looking for a door.”
“Take the feather, hold it close, and whisper a name,” he said to Sir Harold. “The first one is free.”
Sir Harold picked up the feather and whispered the name Luminar, who he believes is one of four people who are responsible for his liege lord’s murder. Nothing happened.
Sir Harold whispered another name, Kaitox. (I remember someone with a name like that, but maybe it was Kamox or Kadox, from my earliest days trying to figure out how to get by without my family’s money and influence. The older members of the thieves’ guild that I worked for liked to mention him as a cautionary tale. The tiefling flew too close to the sun, always attempting something audacious without any regard for danger. If it’s the same person, I’m surprised that he lived long enough to be involved in Count Raymond’s murder.)
This time, Sir Harold seemed to “go away” for a moment. In the Weave, I perceived ripples as I got the sense that a “fishing line” was being cast out from our knight. At first it found nothing, but then it made a connection between Sir Harold and someplace far away.
“Take me back there now!,” Sir Harold shouted. “I need to see him!”
The merchant smirked and said, “A borrowed hand may open a door, pour a drink, guide a blade…but make a puppet dance too much against its nature and the strings snap.”
The merchant offered to give Sir Harold another chance, for a price. “A borrowed shape for a borrowed hour.”
I asked Sir Harold what he saw, and he told me that he saw a tiefling with one horn capped in polished brass at a bar. He tried to smash a glass in Kaitox’s face, and he immediately lost the connection.
Draylor and I tried to persuade Sir Harold not to take the deal. I told him that he’s not really leaving the Riftspan, he’d just be borrowing the perceptions of someone else… and there would be a limit to what he could get them to do. Sir Harold decided that his revenge would be meaningless if he wasn’t the one to enact it.
The merchant said, “Maybe there’s another deal to be made,” as he departed. He left the feather behind, but as Sir Harold dropped it the feather turned into a feather-shaped ivory knife that fell point first and stuck into my floorboard.
I picked it up with mage hand and put it in a box. Maybe Ragnum will have an idea about what to do with it.
I suspect the feather that I brought to you from our visit to Woodcrest Hollow will function in a similar fashion. Please be careful.
Dev
Notes from Sir Harold
Ashfall 37
Beyond that, Sir Harold in his investigations has found four names connected to the death of his liege lord, Count Raymond. Riven 'Ghost Widow' Knox - the leader of the group, Luminar - the one who developed the means of your lieges death. (Poison, macguffin, spring trap carriage door, what ever), Kaitox - Caused a distraction while the murder took place., Akol - A servant that was bribed to allow access to someone to somewhere they shouldn’t be.And with the help of Draylor and Dev who knew a little bit about the people Sir Harold was looking for, he knew one, Luminar was a wealthy individual living in a city called Rivendale. Another named Kaitox was a known Tiefling criminal, with the information he gathered he had committed to trying to leave the Rift to pursue the criminals who robbed him of his honor. But in doing so had come across the feather merchant mentioned above. He offered a way to have the men killed for him in a tragic accident, but Sir Harold was determined to carry out vengeance himself.
Who is the Swan Merchant? Does he have any connection to the bird god Calvareth?
What is the feather token? What was it used for?
Did the Rootbound Circle leave behind any records of their work? Do any of their creations besides the Mirror Stag still remain?
Why was Count Raymond murdered?
Do Riven Knox, Luminar, Kaitox or Akol have any connection to events inside the Riftspan?