The Path to Orialens / Unto Death

''' Did you know? '''

"'The Path to Orialens' and 'Unto Death...' were originally supposed to be played as two separate sessions but were combined into two."

This session's theme song is A Kindling, of Sorts by The Oh Hellos

Major Characters
Bonny Nimstride

Lillia Beldoni

Lenn Catulae

Freckles

Ren

Siryn

Tel' Nequoria

Lukian

Sylfina

Oreb

Minor Characters
Devona

Lasslo

The Blue Lady

Dogheads

Setting
Orialens

Last session recap

 * 1) Rollis was working for Oreb, delivering iron from the mine in Woodpine Hollow
 * 2) Torran is ripped
 * 3) Lillia found that black fabric, Torran gave them a rose and a compass. (Give the rose to "him", tell the genasi in Orialens that "Juno" sent)
 * 4) The souls of the party members are connected to The Ten Realms in some way.

Intro
"The day is Mirtul 13, 1499 L.E. It’s been three days since you were marked with the Ten Strings, and for the past few days the three of you (and Valthyra), have been walking through the region of Rythas, towards the region's capital city, Orialens. From your starting point, Woodpine Hollow, Orialens is about a five day journey on foot, so the three of you only have about two days until you arrive. Since you are moving through the northern area of Orialens, you’ve been traveling mostly woodland, but as you slowly near the city, the trees begin to get thinner, and the sky above more visible.

Right now, it is about an hour or so past midday, and the three of you have stopped by a little stream to take a break. For each of you, this past week has been bizarre and tiring, and you each look at the seemingly permanent marks on your skin and wonder how the hell you got into this situation."

Begin
Lillia tries to investigate the piece of fabric they found in the mine, but doesn't learn much. ("Yup! It's fabric!") Lenn gets separated from Bonny and Lillia, who are both by the creek (Bonny is in the creek, splashing and having the time of her life). She runs into a giant Owlbear, that looks like it's been through a lot (arrows sticking out of it here and there). She calms it down and doesn't want to kill it, but then Devona and Lasslo (Step-sister and step-brother respectively) decide to crash the party and "save" Lenn from the Owlbear. They kill it. After Devona and Lasslo leave, Lenn finds an Owlbear Chub and the party names him Freckles.

The party camps out for the night (Lillia and Bonny argue a bit about where to put the camp, but eventually they compromise and do what Lillia wants). After a bit, they hear a song in the quiet night and follow it back to to find Princess Atharen and Siryn. Lenn and Ren are both elvish nobility in line for the throne and are on friendly terms. Ren gives them a ring and tells them to "give this to Florianne".

The City
Eventually, the party made it to Orialens. They see some posters of the Doghead emblem, a red dog mask. When we're about to go through a gate to The Inner Bubble, a lady wearing a smiling drama mask rushes through. They see a wanted poster with her on it, "Tel' Nequoria", and a list; Terrorism, Theft, Arson, Attempted Murder. The party starts following her. Lillia is hoping to catch her, mostly for the reward money, but also because it's the "right thing to do". Bonny just wants to see what she's up to. Bonny catches up to her but the others are far behind. She corners Tel' Nequoria in an alley and tries to tell her she means no harm to her, but Tel' Nequoria doesn't (or can't) respond. She writes a note for Tel' Nequoria that says "Help?" and Tel' Nequoria responds with a note of her own, of which reads "Don't follow me", and then lists an address. As Bonny is reading, Tel' Nequoria slips away and the rest of the party catches up.

We go to the address and find a Doghead hideout, if you can even call it that. It's a small building nested under a large bridge and doesn't seem like they're putting a lot of effort into hiding it. Bonny knocks on the door and tells the Doghead who answers about the note Tel' Nequoria gave her. They let Bonny inside and she convinced them to help sneak the party into The Inner Bubble.

Lukian's Lab
The Dogheads sneak them into The Inner Bubble through a deep tunnel system and they head towards the Orialens Library. A robot talks to the party and asks if they need any help, but they decline. (??? Please add to underlined section) They get to Lukian's lab he's in disarray. He's all panic-y and he says that Tel' Nequoria took his notes. He asks them to kill her for him, says she's been ruining his work for a while now. He also promises to make them a copy of the notes once they are returned to him.

The Notes
We go back to the Doghead hideout and find Tel' Nequoria there.They fight her and the Dogheads for the notes when she refuses to hand them over to us. Freckles kills two people in during the fight (go freckles! murderous baby <3).

Tel' Nequoria tells them "she's dead and he killed her". She tells them Sylfina was burned alive in a portal after Lukian pushed her in. She tried to help but got burned, whole face is now gone. She cannot talk or see without her mask. "Yuria is dead. There is only Nequoria".

“Funny. It always comes back to strings, doesn’t it?”

We killed Tel' Nequoria (by accident, actually).

Back to the lab
(We go back to the lab??? Lukian's being a bitch but my notes for this scene are lacking...)

Tel' Nequoria's notes read "Needle in eye, tried to see, don't let her do it. Failed test. Roswell and Diya are dead."

Diya and Roswell went into a portal and were burned alive.

A huge portal resembling a glass mirror.

A silver wedding ring.

"Mother came to visit me."

Phylactery

Epilogue
Lukian is holding a small statue of a gold raven. Silhouettes surround him, he dies.

Gallery
(Click to see full images)