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Solace & Stories

Last week, the party searched the mountains for a safe place to rest and recover from their injuries. They found an abandoned cave that had originally been inhabited by a manticore and settled down there. While they were resting, they noticed a group of Black Sun rangers approaching peacefully who apparently wanted to talk. The party sent Ayala to meet with one of their representatives, and the ranger told her that the rangers wanted to try to reason with the party to avoid further bloodshed. He demanded to see the prisoners the party took, and was fairly surprised when they were unbound and enjoying a pleasant breakfast that Camilla cooked. That lowered the tension, and the group of rangers agreed to escort the party to the Black Sun camp so they could talk with Dorcas, the leader of the Circle of the Black Sun. They agreed to wait with the party to heal before continuing the journey.

During the night, Mikolash noticed the ominous sound of heavy footfalls approaching. He woke the party up and they were set upon by a group of four hill giants, one of whom had a fancy hat. The Black Sun rangers joined the fight with their arrows and kiting attack strategies, harrying the hill giants and focusing their fire in conjunction with the party. The hill giants were devastatingly powerful with their clubs, and only Gregory and Chort were sturdy enough to stand in combat with them without being vitally wounded with every hit. They worked together to hold the line against most of the giants while the rangers kited another, with everyone working together to focus fire the giants down in sequence before they could overwhelm Gregory, Chort, and Simon. After a difficult fight, the party managed to drive off or kill all of the giants without letting any of the rangers die, though it was a close call several times. The Black Sun rangers were grateful to the party for taking the brunt of the right and keeping the rangers alive, and they were much more friendly about the escort mission and promised to vouch for the party with Dorcas.

The next day, the party made the rest of the journey to the Black Sun camp with the rangers' guidance. The camp was currently located a short distance from the shores of Lake Solace, though it was clearly still in motion farther away from Praxis. The party asked the rangers why the camp was so distant from the shore, and they explained that there was a monstrous aboleth that lurked in the depths - an ancient and evil magical creature with great power, especially over the minds of sentient creatures. The Black Sun avoided the lake to avoid incurring the wrath of the aboleth, which claimed dominion over the lake and an untold area beyond it. Ayala was, of course, immediately intrigued. The rangers led the party into the camp and arranged a meeting for them with Dorcas.

When the party met with Dorcas, he ranted to them about the purpose of the Black Sun and the folly of civilization. According to him, the apocalypse that destroyed the world was caused by magic, which is generally agreed on by scholars. He said that it was more specificially an incredibly powerful storm that blanketed the entire world for years. The Circle of the Black Sun takes its name from the years that the ravaged the world, during which time the world was darkened by the endless storm clouds and only Praxis held life. More surprisingly, he claimed that the apocalypse was a magical superweapon created by an extremely advanced civilization as part of a war between magical nations. The superweapon got out of control somehow during the war and led to the destruction of everything in the world. The storm also nearly scoured magic from the world, and only fragments of magic persisted. Dorcas claimed that this proves that both civilization and magic must be destroyed. Civilization inevitably grows and consumes everything it can, using whatever power it can to dominate nature and build newer and more destructive tools for war and conflict. Magic is the fuel that drives civilization to develop incredibly quickly, accelerating its influence and multiplying its destructive potential. As long as both exist, another apocalypse that destroys the world is inevitable - and next time, there may not be a Praxis to preserve the spark of life. Dorcas said that he - and by extension, the Circle of the Black Sun - acted as an agent of a greater power named Mammon, who knew the details of this time in more detail and who told him these details about the past.

For some reason, the party was not entirely convinced by Dorcas's arguments. They probed for more details and found not everyone in the Circle of the Black Sun was precisely as devoted as Dorcas to destroying both magic and civilization, and some members arged that destroying civilization alone was necessary while others argued that destroying magic alone was necessary. When Ayala argued that the Circle of the Black Sun was obviously unable to destroy magic itself, and would have to convince people using logic to see its side, he enthusiastically agreed, saying that this was the purpose of "Forced Fruition" - before cutting himself off and asking the party to leave. He clarified that the party was welcome to stay with the Circle of the Black Sun in gratitude for treating their ranger captives well and protecting all of the rangers from the giants, and they decided to stay for a little while to learn more about life there.

After the meeting, Ayala went to investigate Lake Solace with Chort, Camilla, Gregory, and a couple of aquamancy druids from town. Despite warnings about the danger, Ayala went into the water, had a mental conversation with the aboleth, and dove into the depths to talk with it. This immediately concerned the rest of the party, who worried that Ayala had been mind-controlled by the aboleth, so Camilla and Chort rushed back to town to gather aid while Gregory started taking off his full plate so he could swim after her. Camilla and Chort completely failed to gather any aid other than Mikolash and the three rangers that they had originally taken prisoner, so they all rushed back to the shore. Just as Gregory was about to dive underwater, Mikolash received a telepathic message from the aboleth telling him to stop Gregory from diving underwater or it would have to kill him, and that Ayala was fine. Miklash resisted at first, but the aboleth took over his mind and commanded him to call Gregory back, then rapidly filled Mikolash's mind with a replay of the conversation it had been having with Ayala. Gregory ignored the warning, and continued diving into the water.

The aboleth apparently welcomed Ayala to its waters because it saw the potential for an ally. It is aware of the intentions of the Circle of the Black Sun, and is confident that the current location of the Circle is no accident - the aboleth was expected to be enraged by their magic-destroying foolishness and wipe them out, which would lend credence to the anti-magic arguments made by whatever entities are influencing the Circle of the Black Sun. It confirmed that much of what Dorcas said was fundamentally true, as it experienced the years of the Apocalypse Storm as a tiny egg and was telepathically informed of the events leading up to the Storm by its parent, who died in the storm. The aboleth itself narrowly escaped the magic-destroying cataclysm thanks to its sheltered location in the depths of the lake combined with already being in a gestation state between life and death, since the Storm affected more powerful magical sources more strongly. As far as it knows - and it knows a lot - no fully developed magical creature at any depth could have survived.

Ayala was drawn into the lake for a purpose. The aboleth wanted to use her, and by extension the party, as an agent to prevent the Circle of the Black Sun's plans from reaching fruition and allowing magic to be scoured from the world. They negotiated together, and Ayala swore a binding magical geas to not allow magic to be destroyed. In exchange, the aboleth allowed her to attune to Lake Solace and draw power from it. Ayala would have to spend a 24 hour period attuning to the water, and she would return to the party after that time was done. As Gregory swam deeper, the aboleth grew annoyed, and Ayala returned closer to the surface to speak with Gregory and explain the situation to him. He was extremely concerned, but was able to sense that she was not being magically influenced or controlled, so he agreed to leave the lake and wait for her to resurface. The party, minus Ayala, joined back together to plan their next move during that time.

Join us this week to process that info dump and plot your next moves!

Stupid Awards

Chort: Gregory: Camilla: Mikolash: Ayala:
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