Previously, Luca remained at the Careless Wanderer while Falka shared her research on Epidemius, revealing that forcing the fallen angel to heal or create could cause dissonance and allow his entropy to be turned against him. The other heroes escorted Chakuq through the Old Gate, only to be ambushed by the Cult of the Dark Queen, who demanded the acorn from Geolgothis. Chakuq attempted to flee with the acorn but was blocked by mind-controlled street urchins, while Neamhan, Emrys, and Quentin fought off the attackers.
Tenth Day, Second Ride, Autumn Twilight, 1262
(Silvermoon is waning, Bloodmoon is waxing, Darkmoon is waning)The bells struck twice when the final cultist fell and the sorcery that allowed the cultists to dominate and control the children dissipated. Some of the children ran, some of them cried, while others fell into a state of catatonia. While lamps were being lit in the houses around where the fight had taken place, Chakuq quickly took the jeweled dagger from the cultist that had been attacking him throughout the fight and stuck it in his belt. When he tried to take Walor back to Careless Wanderer, Quentin intervened and took control of the horse.
In the meantime, Neamhan, concerned about the noise and the lamps being lit, hid in an alley between two buildings to keep from being spotted. She was worried that the custodians would have seen her call lightning down from the sky during the fight and that they would find her, but instead, she found one of the children hiding in the same alleyway, frightened and cold.
Emrys tried to gather together some of the remaining children in order to provide them shelter and get them cared for. His thought was to bring them to the Careless Wanderer for the night, and then find shelter for them at the Grimsdown orphanage. He managed to gather three children; Martha, Edmund, and Wulf.
Emrys tried to convince a fourth child, who appeared to be somewhat catatonic, but eventually began to speak. When the child spoke it was immediately clear to Emrys who he was speaking to. What Emrys first mistook for shock were the symptoms of Epidemius’ possession. Epidemius restated that he was cut off from Pazuzu’s dreamweb, which left him with few options to parley with the heroes, the posession of children being one of them. He restated that he wanted to prevent further escalation, but that the return of his Book of Woe was not negotiable. Any delay of the reunification with the book would lead to more innocent people suffering. He accentuated that point by grotesquely twisting the child’s body with unseen force and snapping its neck.
As the heroes hurry to leave the scene of the fight and take the three children to shelter, Neamhan looked back to spot three sinister figures, wearing robes and masks shaped like birds, stalking up to the dead bodies and carrying some of them off. She asked Luca about it, but he could not say who they were or what they were doing. He speculated that it might be opportunistic scavengers.
When the heroes arrived back at the Careless Wanderer, Luca used the key he was granted by Durham to let everyone in. Chakuq handed the fruit of Geolgothis to Neamhan, the warmth the acorn provided immediately leaving his body, and went to take care of Walor, who was stalled in one of the two stables in the alley next to the inn.
It was decided that Luca would stay in Chakuq’s room, while Astrid, who had started taking care of the children, would stay in Luca’s room with them. It became clear that Astrid’s new roommate, the fugl, was not fond of children, or any other guest. From the marks on Astrid’s arms and face, it was pretty clear that the fugl was also not that fond of Astrid.
When Neamhan was in her room, ready to settle into a reverie, she decided to reach out to Wynn, who appeared somewhere along the rafters as two yellow, menacing eyes in the dark. Neamhan took some time to explain what had happened that evening, including the acorn they were gifted by Geolgothis, and the task to “plant it in the heart of summer”. Neamhan asked whether Wynn knew where, or what, the heart of summer was. It was clear he knew something, but was playing coy after Neamhan had rejected his offer of minding the acorn. He wanted to bargain, but had a hard time coming up with a suitable payment for that knowledge.
As Neamhan fell asleep, she cradled the acorn against her tummy, letting the warmth of the fruit spread through her body. In doing so she felt content, and fell into reverie. He dreams were plagued by Virulencia and her fiendish child. Several hours went by before she woke from her reverie, still bothered by Virulencia’s intrusions.
Several hours after Neamhan woke up, the others woke up. They found that Astrid had made it downstairs with the three children, had provided them with breakfast, and was readying them to go out. Wulf would go to his mother in Lewisham, and Martha and Edmund would be brought to the orphanage in Grimsdown. Before departure, Astrid requested that Neamhan feed the fugl in her room and told her to be careful. Neamhan is a little uncertain, but ultimately agrees.
When Astrid and the children had departed, the heroes, including Falka, decided to have a private conversation and retreated to Emrys’ luxurious room. Neamhan took the opportunity provide healing magic for all in attendance. Before the conversation good and well started, there was a knock on the door, and a man familiar to Emrys stood at the top of the stairs, in front of his door; Berhard Brenninckmeyer. This was the craftsman who was commissioned by Lady Annabella Waxley to create a lute case for Emrys several rides before. It appeared that the Lady of Evenshade Hall had once again commissioned a gift; this time a beautiful leather lute strap.
When the craftsman had departed, Luca encouraged Falka to share the results of her research into Epidemius. In short, she had gained access to the Library of Ioun, a place of worship in Kingsport that housed an impressive library. This was the same library that the heroes had been having trouble gaining access to, and a source of much information that Falka did not have access to herself when she wrote her dissertation on the Battle of Three Forces, which was the event that made Epidemius lose his Book of Woe.
She found that the celestial that Epidemius had once been was an Ofanim, an angel of pure motion, but that with his fall, he had turned into one of the Calabim, an agent of destruction. All that motion had turned into entropic stillness which would inevitably unravel the order of things around him. In various quasi-religious, quasi-scientific texts, she had found that one of the ways in which the entropy of a calabite could be turned against itself was to make it perform something that was dissonant to its own nature, by making it create, mend, or heal something.
Emrys, who had been listening to the conversation while holding the new lute strap, found a hidden note, much like the one he had found in the lute case. This one read;
The candle gutters, but does not go out. Find me before the wax runs cold.
Neamhan rejected the idea of changing tactics and deviating from their approach of binding Epidemius. Luca assured her that the plan remained unchanged, but that it was always good to learn more about their enemy. Everyone agreed that some of what Falka had uncovered would need validation, and Saint Benedict was mentioned as a reliable source. Luca said he knew of another source of information they could try. When the others asked him to reveal who the source was, they were all getting tunnel vision as they looked at the young warlock, their periphery going dark and tendrils of inky blackness closing in on their sight.
Luca explained as the heroes listened with great focus, that he had long ago struck a bargain with what he thought was a devil, which turned out to be a celestial being. That upon this revelation Luca’s magic changed, and he learned how to heal. When the heroes asked him what was happening and where the darkness was coming from, Luca explained that when Aurion, his patron, was close, that it was the way in which he manifested himself. The shadow that Luca cast grew taller on the wall behind him and took the shape of a tall, hooded being, with dark wings sprouting from his shoulders, and two dangerous sickles hanging from each hip, framing a slender, almost wasp-like waste.
A warm voice spoke out for all to hear;
“I am Aurion. Luca, why don’t you introduce me to your friends?”