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Dunmari Frontier - Session 31

Mirror of Liberation: in which the party frees a lost heir

Featuring: Kenzo, Wellby, Delwath, Seeker, Drikod
In Taelgar: Jun 04, 1748 DR to Jun 08, 1748 DR
On Earth: Friday Sep 24, 2021
From Bas Udda to Karawa

The Dunmar Fellowship thwarts an attack by Agata’s allies, safeguards treasure, and liberates Nayan Sura, the lost heir to Dunmar, from an enchanted mirror.

Session Info

Summary

Timeline

Mirror of the Past

Narrative

Our session begins at dusk, as the party establishes camp in a small canyon about 1 ½ miles north of Agata’s Lair. After an evening discussing the freed prisoners, the mirror, and what to do with Agata’s loot and lair, the party drifts off to rest, with Wellby on watch. Garret Tealeaf, the elderly halfling, wanders over to talk for a bit, reiterating his fear of the magic from Agata’s house, and starting to open up about his experiences as Agata’s servant, especially the terrible screams he would hear from the hut at times, when a band of Orcs attacks by surprise.

The Orcs, joined by a wereraven and some jackalweres, initially seem intent on stealing the treasure, going for high value, easy to carry items. When the party fights back, hard, they begin to retreat, and are largely foiled. Two, however, do flee: a single jackalwere, and one of the stealthy orc shadows, the orc shadow stealing and later killing a horse. 

With the threat driven off, the party goes back to sleep, waking some hours past sunrise. In the morning, the party searches for tracks, and realizes that the Orcs came from Agata’s Lair, perhaps from the mysterious shadowy hill that was never investigated. The idea that Orcs, perhaps lots of Orcs, may be waiting for them makes the idea of returning to the lair less appealing. The party decides to return to Bas Udda, take some time to hide the heavy loot, and then return to Karawa to decide what to do.

While food is short, the journey is not difficult, interrupted only by a moment of doubt when Kenzo and Drikod sense, with the crossing of Shakun’s protection, that some of what they bring is evil, and feel a moment of questioning, whether they are sure they know what they are doing will not bring harm to Dunmar. At this, the party debates whether to destroy some items, and starts by burning the Thorn Seed Bag, with seeds that wither the ground they are planted in.

The party arrives at the outskirts of Karawa a few days later, not wanting to bring whatever may be trapped in the Mirror of Soul Trapping into Karawa. After fetching Mirror of the Past and telling Cintra about the trip to Agata’s Lair, the party shows the Mirror of Soul Trapping to Mirror of the Past, seeing a vision of its history.

As the scene fades, while Seeker and Drikod puzzle over the architecture of the castle in the last scene, eventually placing it as pre-Great War hobgoblin architecture from the eastern side of the mountains, Cintra stands by, shocked. She tells the party that the first Dunmari woman they saw is Nayan Sura, the woman who should be Samraat of Dunmar. Sura was supposed to be the heir to the throne, but she vanished 8 years ago, leading her brother to take the throne in her place. 

The party quickly frees her quickly after that. She does not know Agata, remembering only a giant spiked club (perhaps Samerki’s weapon, which you recall was also a giant spiked club) and then a faint memory of being half-awake in a smoky room, staring at her bloody head in a mirror before she vanished into a strange blank foggy mist. 

During the brief conversation that follows, the party recalls some of the political rumors they have heard, that Sura was seen as a unifying force, someone who could unite the eastern and western factions into Greater Dunmar. When she vanished, her brother Nayan Karnas turned to the west and abandoned the eastern Dunmari, recently refusing to sent troops to help with the gnolls, for example. Sura insists that the other two Dunmari (Isha and Selkan) are freed, and after seeing the tortures they have suffered gives the party a writ of travel (not so useful at the moment) and thanks them for their work. 

The session ends as Sura tells them to keep her reappearance quiet until the Feast of Bhishma, Cintra takes the broken Dunmari mystai freed from the mirror back to the temple, and the party turns to Karawa, to take care of loose ends and other business until the Feast of Bhishma in 9 days time.