Mediums and Messages

Eyes Unclouded - Session 5

Kawase Hasui. Detail from Moon at Ayashi. 1946.

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!

Two Boxes

We rejoin the party as they gathered in one of the storage rooms of the Cat King's castle. They were:

Nanaki rejoined the party after spending a few hours intently studying Calvero Brightflame's spell book. They learned how to cast Still Image from the diagrams inside and managed to avoid a trap enchantment left by the late wizard.

Ambrose shuffled off to get up to... something? (Their player was absent.) Ever inquisitive, Brightflame's former apprentice, Airen, followed him. (A slight retcon since I more or less forgot about her later in the session.)

The party gathered around as Nanaki fashioned some lockpicks out of bits and bobs from their bag, then worked on cracking open the two boxes they had recovered from the home of the faux hamsters. There were two - one that sounded like it had something metallic inside and one that yelped when shaken.

They opened the metallic sounding one while waiting for Merlina, the king's court wizard, to arrive. It contained an ornate, glimmering saber that Sir Percius immediately recognized as being fashioned from meteoric iron.

Merlina arrived soon after and they gave her the saber. Somewhat nervously, she tucked it away in her robes and said it was an artifact that belonged to the Cat King. The party shared the rest of their findings, including the hamsters' notebook. The notes were in an unsteady hand, as if drawn by someone clutching the pencil in their fist and were riddled with spelling errors. Merlina confirmed that the notes mostly recorded the movements of people around town, but flagged a page with a list of treasures from the King's trove:

Next, they decided to open the other chest. The party asked Merlina to ready her magic in case whoever had stolen the saber jumped out. Nanaki popped it open.

Inside and pressed into a rectangular prism, was a timid and pudgy hamster named Rusk. He said he had been shoved into the chest by two little creatures after hearing a scratching noise "like a tree branch against glass." He didn't get a good look at his assailants and didn't know how long he had been in the box - maybe a day? The party was suspicious of his involvement, but eventually decided to let him go.

A Visitor

The party felt like they had done what they could for now and decided to get some sleep. By this point it was almost 2 AM and they'd need to leave around dawn to respect the Cat King's commands.

Just before dawn, Sir Percius heard a scratching sound from outside. Immediately, he threw on a gauntlet and went to the room's arrow slit window. Outside was a little humanoid construct seemingly made from bound twigs. He reached out swiftly and grabbed it. He dragged it inside, where it continue to wriggle and writhe in his fist.

As he did, he shouted for the rest of the party who in turn called a guard. Viora the Toad appeared and, equally shocked, went to fetch Merlina. Madrigal recognized the squirming thing as a twig blight - a sort of conjured construct favored by forest spirits and druids. The thing was only capable of following simple commands, often to a fault.

Merlina the Crow arrived in her nightrobe as the party fastened not one but two ropes to the thing, one being the unidentified magic rope they had borrowed from Donahue the curio merchant. They conferred and decided to let the blight go about its business with Sir Percius holding onto the ropes like a leash.

The party followed as the creature crept out of their room, through the courtyard, and into the keep's banquet hall. The Cat King was here, sleeping sprawled across his throne. The party debated whether they should let the thing near the king, but decided to wait and see what it did. Fortunately, it turned left at the last minute and went up a spiral staircase in the back of the hall.

On the second level, the twig blight made a beeline for a curio table halfway down the hallway that split the floor. Sitting on top of it was a cylinder of beeswax impressed with tiny holes. Flame immediately identified this as the "song no one had heard." The blight tried to get up onto the console to grab the cylinder, but was too short.

The party discussed and decided to try to give it a decoy. Merlina left and returned with a scroll case - fancy but less valuable than the song. They tried giving it to the creature but it threw it down in disgust.

Nanaki had an idea. They took the scroll case and she cast a Still Image inside of it that appeared to be the scroll. This took some time as it was a slight bend of the exact formula she had learned from Brightflame's book. With the case prepared, someone (maybe Nanaki?) pantomimed putting the song-cylinder in the case, then pushed it towards the edge of the table for the blight to grab. This twofold trick was enough and it happily took the case and started making its way out of the castle.

A Stranger

The party followed. They stopped only briefly in their rooms to gather their travelling gear and Sir Horsius, just in case this construct would lead them on for miles. Merlina requisitioned Viora's coat and followed behind.

The blight wound its way out of the castle, down into the village, and out into the forest due west. The party noted that this was the direction Merlina's scout had disappeared looking for the emissary and the direction Jaspern had headed to search.

After squeezing between some blue-needled pines, they emerged onto a narrow deerpath. The canopy was dense enough here that it was almost pitch black even as the sun began to rise. Only Flame's light let them see. As they followed, a fog began to roll in. Then they saw a strange figure loping down the trail.

It seemed to have some of the qualities of a wolf, but ungainly and vaguely humanoid. It appeared as if it had been sculpted by someone who had never seen a wolf before and only had a description to go off of. It was shrouded in a loose cloak of vines and brambles and walked on all four like an ape.

The party prepared an ambush. Madrigal climbed a tree (after some urging from her peers). Flame hid inside the automaton, concealing the light. Nanaki lead Sir Horsius aside and disguised them both among some shrubs. Merlina snuck back along the path, ready to rush in if needed. Sir Percius just lay in the brush and slackened the ropes, giving the appearance the twig blight had been captured but escaped.

The stranger stepped forward and addressed the blight who kneeled and offered the scroll tube. "Its so hard to make good help these days," it said in a low, growling voice tossing the tube aside. It snatched up the twig blight and, with a gesture akin to closing an umbrella, unmade it. As it did so it let out a weird, high-pitched giggle.

That was enough for the party. Flame snapped open the automaton's hood and burned at full blast, blinding the creature with an intense spotlight. Madrigal jumped on it, but landed in something squishy and empty - just like the inflatable hamster outfits. Nanaki ran forward and grabbed the enchanted rope then quickly lassoed the creature.

Finally, Sir Percius stood up and demanded to know who the creature was and why it was stealing from the Cat King. It responded that it was Atakon, emissary of Fyrir the Wolf God, here for tribute. It demanded an audience with the Cat King immediately.

An Imposter

Nanaki inspected the creature. It was clearly wearing a costume and its wolf-like face seemed to be a mask. They considered pulling it off to add to their collection, but realized that it would almost definitely fight back.

The party wasn't convinced. They discussed how best to contain the creature. Merlina suggested bringing it before the Cat King, who would no doubt enjoy sentencing someone for an actual crime. The creature agreed under the condition that they released it from its binding. Fed up, the party asked Merlina if she could disenchant whatever illusion was concealing the creature's true form. To everyone's surprise (and slight annoyance), she could.

As she pulled out her grimoire, the creature made a gesture as if to blow dust and expelled a cloud of technicolor smoke from its mouth, momentarily blinding everyone in front of it. They all managed to shake off the worst of it and Merlina finished her spell. She slammed her book shut and the creature's baggy costume zipped tight as if vacuum-sealed. Madrigal found herself holding onto something fluttering and serpentine.

The party dogpiled the creature as it tried to snake its way out of the costume. First a head covered in blue, pearlescent scales, then two butterfly wings, then a short tail - a small dragon! They wrestled into into submission and began walking it back to the Cat King's court.

As they walked, the party repeated Sir Percius' earlier questions. Who was the dragon and why was it stealing from the Cat King? It was cheeky at first, but realizing it wasn't getting out of this easily, confessed. It really was named Atakon and this was a con it pulled often, disguising itself as an emissary and dazzling locals until they offered tribute. It didn't really know Fyrir and asked them to please not tell her he had pretended to represent her.

GM Notes

This was a fun session. Something like a fifth of our usual time slot was spent recapping the last couple of sessions (which was fun!). In retrospect, it's kind of astonishing how intricate and over the top the setting has gotten so far.

As ever, running sessions based on a timeline of events that will happen if the players don't interfere continues to be a strong strategy. That means that if they successfully detect a thieving blight and follow it back to its handler a couple hours before their big arrival, we can still roll with it. Based on the map I was using (borrowed from Dyson Logos), it was actually a coin flip whether the blight would use their window or the one for the room Sir Horsius was staying in. Either probably would have worked, but I'm glad it worked out like it did.

I really had to restrain myself from saying "alright, let's roll initiative" when they jumped Atakon at the end. The party had ample surprise, but all took steps to try to disarm and ensnare them. I think if any of them had failed their tests, they would have cut the rope or thrown Madrigal aside and tried to beat a fighting retreat, but instead I was happy to reward the player's preparation and use of class abilities.

The enchanted rope continues to be a fun minor mystery. What does it do? Will they ever find out? Only time will tell.

#Cairn #Eyes Unclouded #session reports