Eyes Unclouded - Session 10
L. Midart. 1777 Fireworks in Solothurn. 1779.
These are the records of a lightly modified game of Cairn 2e that I am playing with an in-person group. I've expanded Eyes Unclouded, a now out of print collection of Studio Ghibli themed 5e adventures, into a more open-ended sandbox. You can find our last session here. I'll try to keep these spoiler free, so enjoy!
Up to the Lab
This week our dramatis personae were:
- Flame, tiny fire elemental in an automaton body
- Nanaki, "no-face" spirit and artificer
- Madrigal, halfling forager and werebear
- Sir Percius, law-abiding knight
- September, a squirrel druid and practicing violinist
We rejoined the party as they gathered in a basement storage room of the east tower of the Verdurous Court. Nanaki had modified Flame's shell to add a brazier with which to carry Igneous, the colossal fire spirit. Below, the wizard Ophiane was tearing her way upwards with her huge magical fists. With each strike, the unstable walls and ceiling began to shake and crumble.
The party decided to make a run for it, dashing up a spiral staircase in the room and up five flights of steps. They passed what looked like a cafeteria and lounge, as well as more private apartments, only stopping when the vertical shaft began to fill with green, oily smoke.
This was the alchemical laboratory Jubilo had discovered. Smoke imps were still busily throwing chemicals into a furnace on the far side of the room. Flame asked Igneous to command the imps to stop that and start cleaning up. A billowing head poked out as if to confirm then, with a shrug, went back into the smog to find a broom.
That didn't resolve the smoke issue though and by now the enraged wizard had made it to the bottom of the spiral staircase. September bottled some of the smog with a flask from her pack and hurled it down at the wizard, but she caught it and hurled it straight back with alarming force.
Madrigal poked a head up and realized that there was a crawlable space under the smoke, though an alarming arc of electrical energy passed through the cloud as she watched. She tried to squeeze under, but it was too tight. Nanaki decided to make a break for it and found their way to a window, deftly opening it and starting to vent out the smoke. As it cleared, Flame ordered the imps to douse the furnace and soon it thinned enough to traverse safely.
The Bridge
The party used the intercom system in the lab to call for Aviquin. The elderly wizard was surprised to hear from them since the situation with Igneous didn't seem to be resolved yet. They told Aviquin they were bringing the fire spirit to him and he, tentatively, agreed to meet them in the library (in the west tower) to parley.
The party raced across the covered bridge to the central tower, but quickly encountered the huge open space at its core. Their ropes dangled on either side of the gap, but they figured it would be difficult and time-consuming to cross. Igneous said that if the party found an access hatch, they could manipulate the tower to produce a bridge, though there might be some risks. Nanaki spotted one - a stone panel with conspicuous brass fittings. They popped it open revealing a complex system of metal tubing.
Igneous hurled himself into an open tube and could be heard crashing and grinding through whatever systems lurked within the walls. As they did, the central tower began to rotate and flex with a horrific metallic grinding noise. Two halves of a colossal bridge rotated out of the walls like clockwork, but something went wrong as they were about to join - the whole contraption shuddered leaving a 10' gap to cross.
Flame quickly spooled the nearest rope and tossed one end to September who floated across the gap and tied it off on the far side. This was enough of a connection to let the rest of the party safely sidle across, but not without a few heart-pounding moments of dangling over a 50' drop.
The Contract
The party arrived in the library breathless. Aviquin was waiting for them, a long-bearded old man in an impractical green robe. In one hand, he held the tail end of his cloak and in the other a strange copper staff that ended in three goose heads intertwined. He greeted them formally and demanded to know why they had brought Igneous to him.
Sir Percius stepped forward and demanded to know the exact terms of the wizard's pact with the fire spirit. Astonishingly, Aviquin agreed and from within the folds of his cloak, he produced a rolled peace of parchment:
Let it be known that Aviquin, High Wizard of the Verdurous Court, and the Celestial Fire to be named Igneous do bind themselves to mutual enterprise, each to the profit of the other, and to the Terms that follow:
I. Igneous shall lend his heat, light, and vigor to the Works of Aviquin, so long as such Works be judged worthy by prior agreement and mutual understanding of both parties.
II. Aviquin shall, in turn, grant Igneous the fruits of expansion: freedom to grow in strength, influence, and splendor, provided such growth does not imperil the sanctity of the Tower or its inhabitants.
III. Neither shall knowingly diminish the other, save in defense of life or the preservation of this Pact.
IV. This Covenant shall endure until the agreed enterprise is fulfilled to the satisfaction of both, or until the Watchful Stars withdraw their blessing.
Signed in ink and flame, Aviquin of the Verdurous Court X
The knight requested the opportunity to converse with Igneous about these terms in private and Aviquin complied. Madrigal and Nanaki stayed back to interview the wizard about the goings-on in the Blue Woods (so that if they did alienate the wizards of the Verdurous Court, this whole journey wouldn't have been a total waste) while Sir Percius and Flame took Igneous downstairs to a private room to confer. In the meantime, September began looking for spell books amongst the library shelves.
The Interviews
Madrigal and Nanaki found out what the wizards knew about the rapid expansion of the Blue Woods:
- Aviquin believed the growth was something like an auto-immune response, an attempt to stave off intruders or harm. For the response to be so extreme, the threat must be close to the heart of the woods and quite severe.
- Eirnos, the Deer God believed to be dead, had once done something similar many generations ago when the settlement of Wealdstone was first founded. The great spirit had "moved the wood" to assail the town. Aviquin conceded that might be figurative language, but thought it too close a coincidence to ignore.
- Fyrir, the Wolf God, was hostile to outsiders of all kind and the Court had been unable to contact her or her kin.
- The wizards had heard reports of strange oozing creatures emerging from the forest, but had not seen it themselves. Aviquin said that if the party brought him a sample, he could provide concrete answers about the nature of the forest's malady.
- Aviquin hypothesized that it would be possible to form a pact with one of the great spirits, but that doing so would have unexpected consequences. Such creatures were deeply embedded in the "circuitry" of the forest and some of that would be passed onto whoever formed the agreement.
Meanwhile, Sir Percius went over the contract line by line, confirming the details with Igneous. The fire spirit recalled being summoned from the void between the stars and promised the opportunity to experience new sensation. Space is terribly empty and the spirit thrilled at the opportunity. They asked what being under a pact was like. Igneous shared that one couldn't even countenance breaking, like the thought wouldn't even come to you.
The duo realized that the pact was probably already broken if Igneous was able to rebel (or even be encouraged to rebel by Anais) in the first place. They had marked all kinds of loopholes and flaws, but figured most would be tenuous and disputable if put to Aviquin himself.
They asked if Igneous wanted to leave and Flame advised the spirit not to renegotiate with the court wizards. Igneous agreed that they would prefer to escape. Towards that end, Sir Percius proposed a deception. The party would say they would need more time to survey the contract (feigning innocence) and then Igneous would just leave by whatever means it could.
In the meantime, September found a couple of interesting tomes. They tore a page with the spell Speak with Plants from one book and managed to pocket another magical looking tome that they couldn't quite figure out.
The Escape
Everyone gathered again in the library. Madrigal and Nanaki concluded their conversation with Aviquin as Ophiane came barreling into the room, energy fists crackling. Aviquin made a dismissive gesture and dispelled them, as if brushing dust from a tabletop. He bid Ophiane wait until they had concluded their conversation peacefully. She grumbled and held her peace for the moment.
Sir Percius and Flame returned and made their report: they would need more time. Aviquin was about to respond when Igneous erupted, igniting the entire library in a burst of hot air. The fire spirit hurled itself skyward, spiraling up the vertical shaft in the center of the room and rocketing through the glass in the top of the tower.
The party picked themselves up from where they had sheltered from the blast as Aviquin began using his goose-headed staff to put out the fire with concussive honks of air. The wizard was clearly angry, but seems to have bought the ruse - from his perspective, the party had tried to navigate the situation in good faith, but failed.
Nanaki and Madrigal proposed a silver lining. The party could stay on for a bit to resupply and rest In the meantime, Nanaki would help to install an honest to goodness boiler system using actual coal power instead of an enthralled star being. Aviquin considered this and agreed with some hesitation. He expressed concern that it probably would be some time before the Verdurous Court was restored to anything more than basic day-to-day operations.
GM Notes
Thanks to a busy week, I've left writing these notes until a few days after our session. What stands out in hindsight are the following thoughts:
Giving the players a physical handout for the contract seems to have done good work. I think I threaded the needle well in making that into an "old school" style situation - a document with obvious ambiguities but no clear "solution" in the traditional sense. If the players had just returned and tried to argue with Aviquin, he would simply have dismissed their arguments (or at least dice would have been rolled), but since they came up with a gambit, we could play that out and see what happened.
The chase injected a little much needed velocity into the session. After a few weeks of more open-ended tinkering and investigation both in the Court and in the giant ruins before, it was nice to put some pressure on the PCs to act with urgency.
We ended with the Verdurous Court in an interesting position, somewhere between hostility and the outright patronage the players had initially expected. Some members of the Court (i.e. Ophiane) will absolutely hold grudges, whereas others like Anias will laud their actions. In any case, they are going to be involved with their own troubles for a bit and unlikely to help in anything more than a tacit way with the PCs next expedition.