Return to Aird
After a few days of rest, the Folly decided to investigate what Lizzie overheard at Lady San's and headed to
Kimber, where Mal had previously met
Eve. It was three days - which they spent exploring the island - before Eve arrived to tell Mal there was someone who wished to see her:
Fyn Saremar. A former fellow crew member of
The Carrion who had left the crew shortly after Mal joined, he revealed he had been seeking any surviving members in the hope they could help him track down
Eskessir Edrafan.
Disappointed by Mal's lack of information regarding the fate of the ship, he explained that in training to be a priest of
Eadro he had been told that his soul was already owned by another deity. Certain he had not committed his soul himself, he believed this to have something to do with his time on The Carrion. The Folly decided to return to
Aird to visit
Mother Milucra, hoping her knowledge of souls could provide them with answers.
Before they left, Eve told Lizzie that
Lady San wanted to meet them, which the group agreed to do on their return from Aird.
They travelled in Saremar's ship, The Silver Song, and made it to the island safely thanks to
Cethlenn, whose help Agnes had requested via a sending spell. Battling a variety of undead entities, aberrations, and creatures native to the
Shadowfell, they eventually found their way to
Mother Milucra's lair. In exchange for their relating of traumatic memories, she provided answers regarding which beings owned each of their souls:
Lydia for Agnes,
Pharika/Fierna for Lizzie, and
Triel for Mal and Saremar.
Given the dangers they had already faced, they decided it would be safest to continue their journey across the island on the
Ethereal Plane, where they travelled using Agnes's
portal stone. They made it to the valley where Agnes and Mal had previously visited the Temple of
Hiatea, but found the landscape strangely changed to a dark, desolate state. While still on the Ethereal Plane, they were approached by
Etna, who explained that
Cethlenn had sealed himself within the temple and a shadow dragon had taken up residence in the valley, allowing parts of the Shadowfell to leak through into the Material Plane.
The Folly defeated the dragon - their first! - and then availed themselves of its hoard. They visited Cethlenn in the temple, with all but Rae and Saremar using the
The Albassa Pearl, and each experiencing confusing visions as a result. In thanks for their defeat of the dragon, Cethlenn returned them to The Silver Song using magic. They chose to set sail immediately, glad to be away from the island.
Mal agreed to continue to help Saremar seek The Carrion, but insisted she no longer had any personal interest in doing so.
Assassination in Cannis City
They returned to
Tolsta to find it in a state of political upheaval in the wake of previous events. They made their way to the Temple of Persana and discuss the situation, and the information they learned on Aird, with
Latara. She was able to tell them where Triel resided in
The Nine Hells. Hearing that
Lady San had asked to see them, she requested that they inform her if it was anything to do with
The Albassa Pearl, which she and the
Temple of Persana were still seeking.
Finally she asked to speak with Rae, who subsequently agreed to take on another job for her, thus leaving the Folly to follow a different path.
Impressed by their previous interactions,
Lady San attempted to recruit the remaining members of the group to
her network, with their first task being to 'take care of'
Iona Durrell, whom she believed to have fled to
Cannis City. As they had planned to head to the mainland so Mal could take part in the
Inter-College Games anyway - and wary of defying Lady San - they agree.
In Cannis City they took rooms at The Lean Inn, owned by an old friend of Saremar's,
Hosk Valer. There they were approached by
Lanna Yorga and Jaro Adelin, who informed them that Iona Durrell was secretly staying with
Lord Theonore in her mansion in the city. The Folly met her there, and hatched a plan to fake her death while smuggling her out of the city. Iona Durrell agreed on the grounds that they would locate her brother,
Jura, recalling their earlier meeting and having long suspected them of having knowledge of the circumstances around his corpse's disappearance.
Through magic and good old fashioned deception, they convinced
Lanna Yorga and Jaro Adelin that Iona Durrell has been killed, then sent her to
Annbrook to stay with Old Maggie, promising to find her brother after the
Inter-College Games.
Meanwhile, Agnes had a disturbing dream about Lizzie taking part in what appeared to be a cult ritual, and they discovered through conversation with
Zella Snowpeak that
Master Sorrell had left the College on a sabbatical shortly after their last meeting with him.
The Carrion
Mal found success on the first day of the
Inter-College Games, but during the task on the second day a portal appeared and pulled her through to the
Astral Plane, where she found herself on The Carrion along with its stranded crew.
Attempting to follow her using the portal stone, Agnes, Lizzie and Saremar instead found themselves on the
Plane of Air, where they took shelter in a half-buried temple occupied by a sphinx immortal,
Nanraji. Having been separated from the Material Plane and their followers, Nanraji took pleasure in their company and especially in the stories they could tell, providing Lizzie with a boon in exchange for information of the wider world they had lost touch with.
In the Astral Plane, Mal discovered that it was Celeste and Tybalt who had pooled their magic to bring her to the ship. It was revealed that it was also them who had brought the ship and its crew to the Astral Plane in the first place, in an attempt to save them from the storm that they believed to have been caused by
Triel. This act had caused a rift with the rest of the crew, however - one which they hoped Mal would now be able to fix. The captain,
Eskessir Edrafan, had holed himself up in his cabin since their arrival on the plane. Mal attempted to speak with him, but found him very different to the man she had known.
Lizzie, Agnes, and Saremar made it to the Astral Plane on their second attempt, reuniting with Mal. Saremar managed a brief conversation with his former captain, but an astral wind soon struck, sending the captain and half the crew into madness.
With no means to move the ship, the Folly decided to leave to find help, their travels through the astral sea taking them to an encounter with a gnome academic, Zushon Obruk living on his own shard of land. He offered guidance in exchange for them delivering some of his research to the monks at the
Inn of the Silver Lantern. They made it to the Inn, but not before being attacked by an astral stalker who killed Mal. She was revived by Agnes, but the experience shook everyone and their time in the Inn provided much needed respite.
A fellow patron of the inn,
Finala, offered to guide them back to The Carrion for a price. Using truesight, Lizzie was able to see she was a rakshasa, but they agreed to employ her anyway, and she accompanied them back to the ship.
On their return they discovered that Celeste and Tybalt had left, and that more of the crew had been affected by the psychic winds in their absence. Before more plans could be made, Finala warned them that they had been found by an astral spider - a huge predatory creature more than capable of destroying the ship - and in a desperate act Agnes gathered as many of the crew together as possible and used the portal stone to transport them to the first place she could think of: the Temple of Lydia at her family's home in
Mauren.
The Fate of Eskessir Edrafan
Over the next few days the madness-afflicted crew were healed by Agnes and her cleric grandmother
Catlin Silverbrand. While Agnes and Lizzie stayed in the house, Mal stayed in the barn with the rest of the crew, trying and failing to get answers from Edrafan. The reveal of his having traded all the crew's souls to
Triel, and his reticence to explain his actions, enraged the crew, who decided as a group that the punishment for his betrayal should be death.
They took him up into the surrounding hills to carry out the sentence, but at the last moment he was taken by Saremar and the Folly to
Nanraji 's temple using the portal stone.
There he finally revealed he made the deal with Triel via a ritual he learned from
Captain Janil Crossa but could not recall the details. Nanraji offered to extract the ritual from his memory, which he agreed to. The Folly then chose to have Nanraji give them the ritual directly into their own memories.
Afterwards Edrafan and Mal finally made their peace, and they returned to the
Suncap Hills to face the crew.
Edrafan was given a last opportunity to make his defence, but again refused, and was executed - though both Lizzie and Mal noticed that he appeared to lose consciousness just a moment before having his throat cut. The crew disposed of him in the nearby marshland, but after they have left the Folly retrieved his body and provided a proper burial. Mal found he was wearing an amulet in the shape of the symbol of Triel, which she kept to wear herself.
In the nearby town of
Soldin they encountered
Clover Dinnoch, a former acquaintance of Agnes's, losing a bar fight. Hearing they planned to head to
Cannis City, and keen to make a new start, she asked to join them.
They left the Silverbrand homestead and purchased a cart and two ponies, choosing to make the journey to Cannis over land.
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