[[1493-04-14 - Note on the Gods|<< Note on the Gods]] | [[1493-04-20|20 Tarsakh 1493 >>]] ## Hour 11 We faced off against the Spider – and also Achlys, who was kind enough to pay us a visit. But we aren't dead, and I'm feeling pretty good about that fact, even though a lot of us took a pretty bad beating. I honestly should've known that we'd see Achlys based on the dream that I had last night. For starters, Exethanter was there. It seemed like he was being candid, at least, but it wasn't a friendly visit; he was on a job. He told me that his employers aren't very happy with us. The short of it is that they're concerned that we're going to ruin this place for them by succeeding. The truth is that I've never had any particular itch to piss off powerful forces of evil. On the other hand – unfortunately for those powerful forces of evil – I've also never had any particular itch to play into what they want. This is especially true when what they want is Rictavio or Amelia to offer themselves up in sacrifice. So I told Exethanter that we weren't really interested in going that route. He wasn't exactly overjoyed, but he made it clear that he wasn't necessarily expressing his own opinion – just that of his employers. Plus, he couldn't have been too pissed off, considering he gave me a pastry in the dream. Pastry or not, I was waking soon enough. The chiming of the clock greeted me: hour 11. Ezmerelda also dreamed about Exethanter, which told me the others did too. I told Rictavio not to kill himself – judging by his reaction, I wasn't the first to do so. I didn't need to tell Amelia not to kill herself, but I did anyway. Next, I attempted to convince her to be subject to Greater Restoration. I had been thinking about her behavior the prior night; between her flirting and her insistence that someone will have to bathe in god-blood and die, I figured that she could only benefit from a clear head. Amelia was made pretty grumpy by my suggestion. It didn't help when I issued an ultimatum. Still, she consented once I made it clear that she wouldn't be coming with us to take on the Spider otherwise. She made sure to challenge my "leadership" in any case. But I wasn't trying to be a leader – I was only trying to help. She seemed to realize as much after Skoll cast the spell, because she (somewhat begrudgingly) thanked me. There was one more order of business to address before leaving the safehouse: the deed to the place. I asked the piano if she could hold onto it for us; she agreed, but that wasn't the end of it. Not that I expected otherwise. After I played a song – and after I apologized to Ezmerelda for playing a song – I gave Selise and Ireena a hug, just in case. Then it was off to Cicero's. We emerged from the safehouse into darkness. The sun was absent, and I haven't seen it rise since – not even behind the clouds. Beyond the sun, entire buildings were missing as well. We ran into Johannes near where the press should've been; in its place was a hole in the ground filled with rainwater. Johannes told us that places were disappearing, being "eaten up" by the water. He also told us that Rosa had disappeared a couple days ago and that the river has flooded in the meantime. It's not like we were moving particularly leisurely to begin with, but seeing Elysium deteriorate so rapidly and so drastically had us picking up the pace. It might've been that hurried lack of care that prevented Skoll and Rictavio from seeing the sparking lamppost on the street covered in water; just after I flew into the air with Amelia and Ezmerelda and Nia ran up the side of a building, Skoll and Rictavio got shocked to all hell. But there was nothing to do but continue on. So I patched them up and we did exactly that. Cicero was agreeable as ever. He said that he'd hold onto my notes in case we fail and others need direction. He reasoned that it'll be less that he'll have to explain himself. I glanced over the notes before giving them to Cicero. I guess I did so strangely, because Ezmerelda told me that she's been thinking that I might need glasses. Rictavio raced to pull out a pair of reading glasses with fuck huge circular frames. Everyone insisted I try them on, unfortunately. I'm wearing them now; I'm pretty sure I know what to attribute my developing headache to. Anyway, I asked Cicero for a round of soup. As had become customary, we told him stories in exchange; me, Skoll, and Nia told him about the Baba Lysaga and Christopher. Amelia had a story of her own. To start, she gave some background about the school she teaches at; then, she told us about her Eldritch Realms and Physiologies class, which Ezmerelda had taken. She told us that Ezmerelda liked to act coolly even back then. I wasn't too surprised to hear that – what I _was_ surprised to hear is that Ezmerelda was apparently in some kind of roleplaying club, and that she stole one of the class specimens to stuff and use as a prop. According to Amelia, the jacket that Ezmerelda always used to wear – the one that she recently gave to Skoll – was part of her roleplaying costume. I didn't believe any of it, at first, but Ezmerelda's face told me all I needed to know. And even if it didn't, Ezmerelda actually spoke a little about her roleplaying; she told us that she played a vampire hunter based on her knowledge of Rictavio. Ezmerelda is the cutest person in the world, basically. As an act of mercy, I didn't say as much; she was pretty embarrassed to talk about it, if her sending Rictavio away beforehand was any indication. We finished our soup eventually. We couldn't afford to stall any longer – so we said goodbye to Cicero and left for the lake. After a brief flash flood-related diversion, we made it to the lakeshore. The surface of the water was swirling, and there were dark, angry clouds in the sky. But Foulsham was waiting for us all the same. Skoll had to vouch for Amelia; she was apparently rude to Foulsham previously. Hearing this didn't exactly improve my opinion of the woman, but I tried not to judge her too harshly – Elysium is a stressful place to be. I'm not sure how he managed with the water as rough as it was, but Foulsham got us across the lake and to the clock in his tiny boat. We were all feeling the anxiety; I held Ezmerelda's hand for my own sake as much as hers. Foulsham said that we've treated him well and wished us the best before departing. As was the case with Cicero, he was solemn enough that you'd think we were already dead. But we weren't dead, and the Spider was at the base of the clock tower just as we expected him to be. He wasn't happy to see Amelia with us – but he also wasn't surprised, and he agreed to Skoll's request for a private conversation regardless. We stayed close by while the two talked. To the Spider's credit – and Skoll's – it took a long time before he became agitated; but he raised his voice eventually, which is when me and Nia decided to join in on the fun. Nia, ever the soothing presence, told the Spider that he has two options: die willingly, or refuse and be without a sacrifice. The Spider took this as well as could be expected, which is to say that he threatened our lives. Throughout the course of the conversation, a couple things became clear. For one, the Spider didn't know that the nexus was failing until we told him as much. Secondly, he didn't know that the dark powers are keeping him in Elysium; I'm not even sure if he knew about the existence of the dark powers at all. Our attempts to convince the Spider of these facts fell on deaf, angry ears. He began to shift and grow, then; at the same time, it looked like the sky was coming apart. The Spider stretched until he loomed high above us, taller than any building that I had seen in the city. I did the only thing I could do: I stabbed one of his spidery legs and prepared to get the shit kicked out of me. It was a tough fight, to say the least. Some of Skoll and Rictavio's spells didn't do anything against him; Ezmerelda didn't even bother with her own. Still, we pulled out all the stops. Rictavio summoned some kind of lion-like beast; Skoll grew wings at one point; Nia summoned three giants, including our old friend Will; Amelia only accidentally shot Rictavio like twice. But the Spider played it smart. He grabbed us in his many hands – when he didn't feel like simply restraining us, he'd throw us as far as he could. I had to catch Rictavio at one point; I'm pretty sure he would've broken at least one of his legs on impact if I hadn't. There was a point when the Spider glared at me with all eight of his eyes. I don't know what he did, but something in my brain broke – I knew my friends, their names, and the need to protect them, but not much else. I couldn't understand anything that anyone was saying; I couldn't speak either. I could hardly think at all until Rictavio healed me. It was scary. But when Rictavio urged me to get back, I stood my ground – Ezmerelda had positioned herself in front of me. Soon enough, the Spider was falling, his body fading off into a ball of shadow. The shadow moved to sit in the middle of the clock. We followed, but some kind of invisible barrier stopped us from getting too close. The Spider spoke in our minds and warned us that we wouldn't be able to fell him again. Unfortunately for the Spider, we weren't exactly prepared to believe him. We weren't about to give up, either. Nia cast a spell with the mirror, trapping the Spider's shadow inside; in the short time he was occupied, Rictavio healed us, and we stepped up to the center of the clock. The Spider's shadow ripped its way out of the mirror. By then, his bravado was starting to give way. He was a little more receptive to talking to us as a result; in return, we gave him some information on the remnants of the gods that occupy Elysium. On his request, we also told him more about the dark powers and domains of dread; miraculously, he started to yield as the conversation went on. He was actually listening to what we were saying, and it soon became clear why: learning that there are vestiges of the gods remaining in Elysium, that they continue to hold power, that a domain's lord acting against what the dark powers expect of the lord's character can sometimes allow them to walk free – this was enough to have the Spider reconsidering his options. I'm sure the fact that we beat his ass helped, too. The Spider requested some time to think about what we had told him. Nia didn't want to leave, but I argued that we'd proven that we could deal with him if he was trying to trick us. As a compromise, Nia left her tentacle tressym to watch over the Spider while we were gone. It was back to the safehouse. Nothing got in our way, which was good – despite Rictavio's healing, we were all pretty spent. And more than that, we had another fight ahead of us: the door to the safehouse was ajar, and Achlys was waiting for us in the sitting room. She said that she hadn't touched anyone in the house. Once Nia confirmed this with a quick psychic communication, we were offered a deal. The deal was this: leave Elysium to rot and we could all walk. Achlys was even so kind as to offer relocation services, since the thing in the mirror might very well destroy Toril if it were to break out of its prison. As bad as I want to be out of Elysium, it wasn't a very appealing deal. For one, I don't need the destruction of an entire sphere on my conscience. For two, we must've been close to succeeding – the dark powers wouldn't have sent Achlys otherwise. I tried to talk Achlys out of a fight, but she couldn't be convinced; she insisted that our encounter in Borca had simply been a test. She allowed us to take our business outside. I thought it was a boon, at first – I didn't want anyone in the house getting hurt – but Achlys's motivations weren't so generous: dozens upon dozens of animated corpses were waiting for us outside the safehouse. On top of that, Achlys was still talking, singing the praises of the dark powers; but it wasn't until she started spewing bullshit about how Ezmerelda or Rictavio could've easily become a dark lord that I attacked. Achlys hit us back hard – I realized pretty quickly that she might've been telling the truth about holding back in Borca. As for the corpses, they started forming together until they made up ghastly amalgamations. The corpse monstrosities proved challenging in their own right, so that's where I focused most of my attention. After I had carved through a few of them, Rictavio made an abomination of his own out of what remained: some kind of fucked up monkey thing. We were managing to wear Achlys down, but we were barely getting by ourselves. I watched Ezmerelda get hit bad – I was too slow to stop it – and then I watched her swing the sunsword at Achlys again and again until Achlys's armor cracked right down the middle. But it wasn’t over just yet. The sword that Achlys was holding surged with energy, and a shadow of a being burst out of the crack in her armor. It was a fucking dragon. Thankfully, we didn’t have to fight it for long at all. Rictavio ran over, grabbed the dragon’s tail with the hand that wasn’t clutching his holy symbol, and then – just like that – it was gone. Rictavio was so high on his victory that he failed to notice his fucked up monkey thing tripping over itself in his direction. Had he not actually gotten hurt, it would’ve been funny. All that was left to do was destroy what remained of the armor, so I did exactly that. Rictavio confirmed that Achlys wasn’t coming back any time soon; he banished her to the plane of fire. We could relax for the time being. We were all covered in blood, but Ezmerelda had gore all over her – only some of it was her own – so I let her shower first. Skoll and Rictavio made food after we patched our wounds and washed up. While we were eating, we discussed how long we should rest before regrouping with the Spider. We knew that it’s a tricky situation – none of us are operating at 100%, but we certainly don’t need the hour ticking over. We ended up settling on giving him a couple hours’ time. With nothing better to do, Amelia had us revisit a topic that had come up previously: namely, our biology mix-up in the feywild. She wants to conduct “non-invasive comprehensive physicals.” Nia said no immediately; On the other hand, Skoll agreed. I also agreed, albeit a little reluctantly – I couldn’t think of a good reason not to, and I figured that I owed Amelia one for helping us take on the Spider and Achlys. Amelia wasn't too upset with Nia for refusing; she offered to teach her and Skoll a protective spell that she had invented. Me and Ezmerelda kept hanging out in the dining room while everyone went off to do whatever. We spoke about how Elysium will likely return to the material plan, should we be successful. Ezmerelda voiced concerns about someone breaking the spell that imprisons the thing in the mirror, whether it be on accident or on purpose. I suggested that we could pay people to guard the area. Ezmerelda also has some people she can reach out to about the situation. Whatever the case, we’ll need to find a resolution, because it would kind of suck if everyone on Toril got annihilated. Since there wasn’t anything we could do about it then – and since the topic was kind of super anxiety-inducing – I changed the subject. We ended up talking about our future, about Fox, and about how a sibling for her would probably make sense. Ezmerelda made fun of me a little for having it on my mind; I had to clarify that I’m not looking to have a kid for at least another five years, if not a decade. In any case, Ezmerelda was plenty willing to hear out my idea for a name. Rook is the name. Ezmerelda seemed to like it. It’s strange being able to have these conversations so sincerely and so casually with Ezmerelda. But it’s nice, to say the least. I’ve been trying to focus on those conversations – failing that, I’ve been thinking about Skoll and Nia’s future homes, since they both approached me about them earlier. But it’s hard to keep the worry out of my mind – beyond the issue of the spell nexus’s vulnerability, I’m worried about Achlys not being verifiably dead, and I’m worried about the Spider not doing what we want. But we’ve been doing all we can do. I’m hoping that we manage; if note, we’ll see soon enough. --- ## Page Tags/Properties **Tags:** #Journal **Category:** [[Journals and Writings.base|Journals and Writings]] **Character:** [[Krue d'Avenir|Krue]] **Campaign:** [[City of Eyes]] **Date ([[Calendar of Harptos|Harptos]]):** 04/15/1493