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Dreams & Discoveries

The party arrived at the enclave inhabited by the druidic Circle of True Balance. A guard told them that a druidic elder would visit them as soon as possible, and that in the meantime they were welcome to participate in normal life there. The enclave offered a wide variety of friendly naturey activities like woodcrafting workshops, meditation, and druid yoga1, and the party generally partook of them. Eventually, the druid elder finished her other duties and came by to gather the party. She led them to a hollow tree and introduced herself as Galefeather, and the party explained that they had been tracking a pair of arsonists who appeared to be from this enclave. Galefeather took them seriously, but wanted more information than what the party remembered, and a more direct confirmation of what they saw. To that end, she asked the party if they would be willing to participate in a lucid dreaming ritual which would allow them to re-experience the events of the night. That would allow Galefeather to see the events they witnessed in an unbiased fashion, and would allow the party to potentially notice things that only their subconscious minds had registered the first time around. The party agreed, and the ritual began.

A deep and formless void surrounded the party in the dream, and they saw each other standing in a circle. At first, they were confused, but after some experimentation they determined that they could concentrate to alter the landscape around them. Together, everyone except for Charlie2 concentrated on the events of the night in Praxis when the fire almost burned down the Hedges' house. When the dream fully coalesced, the party found that they were re-enacting the events of the night, with their bodies automatically moving on their own to match their original actions. The party broke from their previous patterns to try to successfully apprehend the arsonists instead of letting them escape, and most of them crowded around the house where they were hiding. Ayala held the line against the fire elementals from the burning house, which seemed to intensify and multiply every time the party broke from their original behavior, and Charlie generally bumbled around assuming that it was a dream and that nothing could hurt him.

With the benefit of foreknowledge and much more effective teamwork, the party successfully stopped one of the arsonists from escaping, and noticed something they had originally missed: the armor sigils identifying the arsonists as being part of the Circle of True Balance appeared to be charcoal-based forgeries instead of genuinely crafted. They also got a good look at their faces in the firelight, making it easier for them to identify the perpetrators if they saw them again. The party tried to interrogate the one they captured, but his words came out as muffled and indistinct - the magic of the dream was insufficient to give the party information they had never originally learned. Meanwhile, Ayala was discovering that she could manipulate the dream to summon water far in excess of her normal power, and was preparing to drown the entire flaming house with an immense flood of water. Unfortunately, she was interrupted by Charlie, who discovered to his great surprise that the fire elementals could indeed hurt him in the dream, and he rang the safety bell to end the dream and wake everyone up.

Galefeather helped them all wake up from the dream, and together she and the party discussed the information they had gained. They all agreed that it seemed like the arsonists had probably tried to frame the druids without actually being part of them, but Galefeather thought one of their faces looked familiar, so she agreed to ask around the enclave to see if she could find information about him. With that mostly resolved, Galefeather turned her attention to Charlie and his strange bond to the doll. She determined that there was more magic than she could remove by herself, but she could at least strip some layers of the curse and hopefully make the doll less antagonistic. She agreed to perform a ritual to that end, and the majority of the party went off to enjoy more druidic enclave fun while Charlie and Camilla remained behind to observe and/or be a subject of the ritual. The ritual apparently succeeded without incident, and the two left to kill time while Galefeather did research on the identity of the face she recognized.

The next morning, Galefeather came back to the party and said that she had determined the identity of the mysterious arsonist. His name was originally Fairthorn Seadancer, and for a while he had been a genuine member of the Circle of True Balance. However, he had since abandoned his druidic oaths and taken on a new name, Frank Smith. As far as anyone in the enclave knew, he had left for Praxis and had not been seen since. Armed with this information, the party decided to return to Praxis and present their findings to Captain Tam to clear the name of the druids and keep looking for the real culprits. Galefeather gave them good directions to avoid danger, so the journey back was uneventful and they were able to arrive back safely in Praxis.

Captain Tam was grateful to hear the information about the true identity of the arsonists, and she gave the party the badges they had originally been offered before leaving Praxis. The Praxian Honor badges marked them as a known Assistant to the Guard, signifying that they had helped the guard in some meaningful way, and would encourage the town guard to give them the benefit of the doubt if trouble arose. She had her assistant, Abe, work on finding evidence of Frank Smith, starting with the registry of known Nullwardens at the party's recommendation. She also asked for the party's help in an unrelated matter. One of the taverns in town, the Dancing Pigeon, was known to potentially have under the table gambling on illegal bar fights, and she asked the party to investigate and potentially help put a stop to it. The party agreed, though they decided to go to a Nullwardens political rally first.

The rally was concerning and somewhat tense for the party, but ultimately uneventful. The Nullwardens issued dire warnings about the wisdom and safety of the Havens, but didn't make any explicit threats, and their main practical objectives seemed to be focused on propaganda campaigns to warn farmers against relying on magic or accepting magical aid. Ayala confused several Nullwardens with philosophical questions, and her charm fortunately prevented her from being seen as a threat, but she was apparently unable to convince any to see the error of their ways. After a brief stop by the guardhouse again where Abe confirmed that he had been unable to find Frank Smith, the party went to the Dancing Pigeon to investigate the fighting.

As it turned out, the Dancing Pigeon did indeed have both illegal gambling and sketchy underground fights. To the surprise of absolutely no one who actually knew the party, they joined the gambling and fighting at the nearest opportunity. Ayara joined the ring herself, and after some confusion over exactly how much magic was allowed in a fistfight3, she won against a seemingly stronger but also startlingly clumsy4 bar fight champion. The party raked in their small winnings and left the bar, but before they could merrily stroll off into the night, a pair of bar patrons followed them out and angrily insisted that they had cheated at the fight with magic. Things might have gone south, but Charlie called for the guards and the bar's bouncer defused the conflict to prevent the guards from coming. The party left safely, but with some new enemies at their back...

Join us this week to hopefully uncover the elusive Frank Smith!

  1. Like regular yoga, but the animal poses aren't just metaphorical.
  2. Since he never originally observed the fire, he just concentrated on not disrupting the dream too much.
  3. None whatsoever! You're just supposed to punch each other!
  4. Charlie surreptitiously intervened with magic to make the barfighter keep falling on the floor and ensure Ayara's victory, but the bar was too loud for anyone in the party to notice.

Stupid Awards

Charlie: Chort Bumblefoot: Mikolash of Melvyn: Camilla: Ayala:
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