09.11.2024 - Scribe-5 - Painting and Genocide

• Statue room:
  • The new room has a new task written: "Assignement: Paint the colors of desire"
  • Bucket notices some shadows walking amongst the easels
  • His divine sense also reveal that this area has been desecrated, and that the shadows are fiends (they remind him of ghosts)
  • He feels violence, deception and evil intent radiating from the ground we're standing on, almost seeing blood seeping through the tiles for a moment
  • Scribes sees the shadows clearly through See Invisibility, they have horns and dark glowing eyes.
  • She also sees multiple invisible exits out of the room
  • There is an extra easel splashed with color in a corner, also invisible
  • Classical music is playing
  • Void sees illusion magic where the statues are, but doesn't notice any other school of magic, so the statues are probably just items
  • Scribes sketches the statues to capture the image of E and Erin
  • Scribes investigates the invisible easel
    • There's a lot of red and purple, with a splash of yellow and a black outline
    • It is very abstract, with no disernable shapes
    • It's signed, a bit hard to read.
    • As Scribes leans in close to read it, it seems to shift before her eyes. It's changing fast between drawings of animals, text etc.
  • As we're talking about drawing desire, Void suddenly sees the room trashed and filled with paint
    • He sees footsteps walking away from him in the paint
    • The footsteps look like an elf's footsteps
    • He follows them to the middle of the room
    • The rest of us tell him that we don't see any of what he's describes
    • He studies his vision more, and sees the paint/blood sink into the floor, as everything becomes normal again
• One of the tables has bubbling and fuming paint
• We try to paint the easels into desire.
  • Bucket paints a golden acorn. Something whispers in his mind "Yes, you want this golden nut above all else. You want to become prince"
    • He continues, and one of the shadow fiends comes and trash talkes his painting. "Uninspired. Are you sure you're worthy of continuing. Maybe you should start over"
    • They argue a bit back and forth
  • Scribes paints her companions, making the colors photo realistic
    • She fails the save and becomes deeply attached to her painting, obsessing over making everything perfect
    • She's stuck in this trance for a while
    • One of the shadow fiends complements her: "Brilliant work. But I think you could make it even better". It recommends that she uses something of herself
    • She uses her own oil (instead of blood), and gains advantage on painting checks for an hour, but looses some hp
• Void paints Erin welcoming him back in the doorway of the house they used to live in
  • He doesn't become obsessed
  • A shadow fiend roasts his painting, telling him to put his soul into it
  • Bucket offers moral support, making it worse
  • Void has some lingering doubt that he might be too late, and that his painting is just a dream
  • He gets disadvantage on any painting ability checks
• We suddenly notice that Coty never entered the room after us
  • We can't find her, and she doesn't responds when asked in the voice chat
• Back in Veilhearth, Sylword finishes making a statue of The Allfather, covered in runes.
  • It is warm to the touch, and softly humming. Anyone connected to Moradin can feel his presence in this object
  • He is not sure he could ever crate something like this again, as it required a very rare spark of creativity
  • He uses the statue to tell Erline Thorne that he's finished
  • When reaching out to Moradin, he sees him working on his forge, back turned
  • The Allfather eventually looks at Sylword. His gaze gives the feeling of infinite creations and possibility
  • Moradin looks back to his forge, finishing a statue of Erline Thorne
  • She speaks, making Sylword realize for the first time that he is in the presence of the Allfather
  • Sylword tells Moradin that he apprietiates him listening to his prayers, so he's not alone
  • Erline tells him that she has to call in a favor, and can get back to him in a few minutes
• Back in the canvas room, Erline Thorne goes over to Bucket and yanks him down to her level: "Prince! I am calling in your favor"
• She tells him to rescue two young dwarves that have lost their way in here
• He promises on his honor
• Sylword wants Erline to get Bucket to ask Coty what she wants for lunch
• Bucket tells him that Coty is missing, so he should take both
• Sylword relays to The Allfather that Erline is ready for the transfer
• He notices that Moradin is making a detailed statue of Sylword
• As the statue is quenched, Sylword feels a pull towards the barrel, and is absorbed into the statue
• When he opens his eyes, he is in the room with the rest of us, instead of Erline Thorne (and without the item he created)
• Bucket tells him to paint something he desires
  • Sylword tries to paint himself and Coty hugging, and him delivering her lunchbox
  • He crit fails the save, and is roasted by a shade
  • After some arguing, he is compelled to try harder, but it feels like every stroke makes it worse
• Scribes is still stuck in her painting obsession
• A voice speaks out: "Emotion captured in color, speaks for itself"
• One of the doors become visible to the others
• Bucket and Void struggle to convince Scribes to move on
• Meanwhile, Sylword manages to break free of his trance
• Sylword and Bucket tries to wrestle her, then Sylword animates her canvans and walks it out of the room
• Once Scribes crosses the threshold, she returns to normal
• The new room is an ornate theather, with a small stage lit by a dim spotlight
  • Several spectral students are seated unblinking in the audience
  • A blackboard on stage reads "Assignement: Express your inner vision"
  • Sylword notices that Coty is one of the spectres. The rest of us can't see it
  • Void uses a magic wand to Locate Creature, but can't find her
  • Sylword uses Turn Undead
    • He gets the feeling that he was not supposed to do that
    • All the spectres are destroyed, as we hear faint screams and wails from the walls
  • Scribes reapplies See Invisibility on her monocle
    • There is an invisible creature taking notes in the corner. It's a spectral imp
• It puts up a visible poster "The performance of a lifetime. Don't miss it!"
  • Everyone except Void sees E in a beautiful gown on the poster, Void sees Erin, in the same gown
  • For Void, the date on the poster is set to a few days after she was taken
  • For the rest of us, the date is today
  • Scribes hypoteses that Void is seeing the remnants of when Erin went through these challenges
• On the stage is boxes of props, musical instruments and costumes
• While we're discussing, the imp puts up another poster: "Worst performance ever, would not watch again!".
• Void sees it as himself attempting the same performance as the other posters
• We see a devil
• Sylword casts Sending to Coty, asking where she is: "I'm a bit busy, shhh. Oh, that isn't good"
  • Sylword and Scribes sees a spectral version of Coty walk out of the wall, guided by a devil walking with a cane
  • One of the devils hands is made of metal
  • The devil is the same as the rest of us sees in the "worst" poster
  • We see Coty walk on stage, perform on stage and exit through another wall
  • The "door" looks like a curtain, that vanishes as they walk through
  • The devil has large wings with claws on it, and four horns that flow backwards and up
  • He is trailing some inky liquid from his fingers, and might have created the door with that ink
  • There is an ink thread connecting Coty to one of his fingers
• Scribes draws an exact replica of the door on the wall
  • Once completed, a voice booms "The stage reveals truth. A true inner vision", and the door becomes reality
  • However, the real door/curtain now seems ripped
• The next room has portraits, slowly turning their heads towards us
  • The walls contain famous artwork, with an infernal edge
  • A chackboard reads "Assignement: Capture your soul on canvas"
  • Sylword does not see Coty in the room, but it looks like she is in one of the paintings

   

Plan

  Save Coty and the two dwarves (Bucket's honor depends on it)   Look for clues about Void's sister, and a way to stop his tattoo from taking over     ---------------------------------   Sylword can cast Locate Object on the knife that was left on the other side of the Lorladon portal.   Scribes needs to read up on what pranks are, and think of one to prank Sylword and Bucket back. Since they told her to.   Learn the new spells: Aquired but unlearned spells   Scribes needs to talk to Coty about what happened with Lorladon (Coty wants to assemble her voodoo dolls first)   We should turn Custodian Auren over to the Path of Hill, claiming that we held him while we investigated his crime of impersonating the Emperor