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Dunmari Frontier - Session 26

The Crumbling Mesa: in which secrets and shadows emerge

Featuring: Kenzo, Wellby, Delwath, Seeker, Drikod
In Taelgar: May 23, 1748 DR to May 24, 1748 DR
On Earth: Tuesday Jun 01, 2021
Karawa

TheDunmar Fellowship meets Drikod, learns of the dire consequences of the missing Heart of Shakun, and battles shadows during an initiation ritual.

Session Info

Summary

Timeline

  • May 23, 1748 DR, evening: Reach Karawa. Speak with centaur patrols. Meet Drikod. Hear story of Cintra and Shakun’s Heart from apologetic and floundering Candrosa.
  • May 24, 1748 DR: Gather supplies in Karawa
  • May 24, 1748 DR, dusk: Ritual of Shakun’s Initiation. Seeker notices the mesa is crumbling. Attacked by shadows at conclusion of initiation ritual.

Mirror of the Past

Narrative

We begin as Delwath, Wellby, Kenzo, and Seeker approach Karawa from the south road as the sun begins to sink in the sky, after five days of travel across the desert from Pava and Avaras’ House to the east. As they approach Karawa, a patrol of centaurs and Dunmari intercept them, glad to see the party return safe from the desert. Candrosa would urgently like to speak with them, and so the party follows into Karawa. 

The situation in Karawa is grim. There have been several more attacks, from undead skeletal gnolls, from wild beasts, from ankhegs, and more centaurs and Dunmari have died. What’s more, the messenger send to the Samraat court in Nayahar has finally returned with the news that the ruler of Dunmar, the Samraat Nayan Karnas, will not commit imperial troops to defend Karawa, and will only commit to a defense of the river Hara, near the city of Tokra. What’s more, Seeker notes that the mesa around the Temple of Shakun seems to be crumbling. 

The party speaks with Candrosa, who seems to have aged with worry and exhaustion. He admits he has failed, he has made a grave mistake, and there is much he did not tell the party earlier, out of worry and doubt over the possible consequences of revealing the secrets of his order. He tells Seeker of the chamber below the mesa where the Mystai of Shakun grow stone and rock to make their magical powders and ointments, and apologizes to Delwath for tricking him into seeing a vision that he thought was from Shakun but was in fact Candrosa’s manipulation with his staff. But, before he tells the full story of the Heart of Shakun, he tells them that a stoneborn traveler is in town, who has come asking questions about the failure of the protections on the Dunmari border, and he would tell the story once to all of them. Delwath, Kenzo, Seeker, and Wellby meet Drikod, the Stoneborn from a small village in the mountains to the north. After introductions and some brief conversation, the party hears the story of Heart of Shakun from Candrosa. 

Candrosa tells them of a woman, Cintra, in whom the spirit of Shakun seems to live embodied in the mortal world, who has something of the power of the divine in her. She is the Supreme Oracle of the Shakun Mystai, a person outside the hierarchy of the order, a prophet acknowledged to have a direct connection to the goddess Shakun. Several years ago, she had a daughter late in life, Jumi, in whom the blessing of Shakun seemed to be very strong, for she could make colors run in the desert sand before she could talk. Some months ago, her daughter took ill, and no magic could cure her. Cintra was convinced that Shakun was speaking to her in her dreams, and telling her to take her daughter and Heart of Shakun south of the Red Mesa, to a place called Shakun’s Wellspring, a sacred grove. Here, Cintra’s dreams said, the power of the Heart could heal her daughter. She left with some trusted companions in early February, and no one has heard from her since, despite several efforts of the mystai to send rescue. Candrosa also tells them that the absence of Heart of Shakun from its place in the temple is responsible for the failure of the protections on the borders of Dunmar, but he literally is unable to speak about how it works, and says he has to show them instead. 

After some discussion in which the party is understandably annoyed that Candrosa was not more forthcoming earlier, he admits his only excuse is that this knowledge has been secret for so long, he was genuinely unsure what would happen if he told outsiders – the gods work in mysterious ways after all. He now no longer trusts his judgment, however, and is willing to consider something like telling Havdar and marching a small army south to try to rescue Cintra and her daughter (if they are alive), or at least recover the Heart. And he does agree to at least tell Tharandros about the Heart. But he remains nervous that revealing this secret widely will have unexpected consequences, and at Delwath’s suggestion says he will try to search in dreams to find out whether the secret has already been revealed. The party agrees to return the following evening for a ceremony to understand the nature of Shakun’s Heart and its magic.

At this the party leaves to set up camp and tend to business, including showing the broken glassware from Kharsan to the mirror, seeing a vision of its history.

During their day in town, Delwath speaks with Tharandros and confirms that Candrosa told him of the Heart, and Wellby negotiates barding for Baxter in exchange for a nicely made map of the area they’ve traveled in, although it will take three days to be ready. 

After that, the party returns to the temple in the evening, where Candrosa tells them that the only way to show them the magic of the Heart of Shakun is to go through the initiation ceremony into the Mystai, although without the Heart this is not the full initiation and they will not be Shakun Mystai or bound to the order afterward. He also tells them that part of the magic ties the people together via their shared experiences and memories of Dunmar, but since none of the party grew up here he is not sure what will happen. 

He leads the party through the temple to a chamber underneath the mesa, lit by torches that burn with blue fire. A pool of water sits in the middle of the cavern, which bursts into blue flame as a mystai plunges a torch into it. The party are given sips of some thick potion, and then pushed underwater, where they find that breathing is no issue and the fire does not burn as their eyes close. 

They experience The Shakun Mystai Initiation.

As the initiation ritual ends, the party snaps awake to shouts in the darkness, screams, as through a veil of blue flames shadowy forms are detaching from the wall to attack. The shadows from Kharsan have tracked the party, and taken this moment of vulnerability to launch and attack. Despite the difficulties of being caught without gear, the party fights off the shadows, although not before two mystai are killed, drained of energy and turned to withered husks by the shadow creatures. 

We end as the party regroups, helping Candrosa tend to the bodies of the dead and preparing for a funeral and plans in the morning.