Characters:
- Ilai
- Raoul
- Teslan
- Tristan
- Kaelan
We start our journey from Teslan’s keep, in the south, and travel over water to a peninsula in the south. Despite the pouring rain, Ilai finds the muddy tracks of our quarry and instructs in using the downpour and the landscape to mask our pursuit.
As we follow the track we come across symbols carved into trees. Eye shapes – some more precarious than others, all quite old. We wonder if this is just iconography or something of power. Of magic. It is not a religious symbol that we recognize, though Teslan does know of at least one goddess associated with eyes.
We continue to follow the symbols through the sparsely-forested island until we hear the sound of crashing ahead, which sounds terrifically like a beast rampaging through the area. We take refuge in what trees there are and wait to get eyes on the creature and surprise it. This works in our favour at first, but the creature recovers quickly and directs its fury and retribution at Teslan and Raoul, while all fixing one of its three baleful eyes on Ilai, then Teslan, and finally Raoul.
The monstrosity does not appear to be native to this place, something we ascertain once it is rendered inert and we can safely examine it. Raoul gouges out one of its eyes, which continues to look around frantically. He covers it in a black cloth, declining Kaelan’s offer to preserve it in one of the alchemist’s vials. Teslan chops the creature’s head off as a trophy for Wyverfang Keep, and offers any other parts of it for the alchemist to harvest. There’s some debate about whether to bury the remains or burn them.
Ilai meanwhile looks for the trail of the beast and find it leads southwest, perhaps to where it made its lair. We follow the tracks deeper into the forest and eventually find the ruins of a temple, which has some eye-related iconography. Stairs lead to an area underground but we find it more prudent to stay above level for the time being.
During the night, Teslan goes to Raoul and tells him of Aristea, goddess of the Third Eye, who cursed a prophet that had displeased her. The prophet was doomed with seeing only the truth but never to be believed, and it drove her to edge of sanity. “I know you took the eye and I will not contest it; I trust you, but I want to give you this warning. Be safe, and if there is ever something you need, come to Wyvern Fang and ask it of me.”
Raoul nods solemnly, and spends the rest of the night on the edge of the temple in deep contemplation.
Ilai and I also talk during the time, though our conversation entails considerably less doom.They tell me they are of the Fey realms – a place adjacent to many other planes – and this is their first time outside of it. They find it strange and beautiful and some parts overly drab. I find it considerably more colourful than my own home, which is also said to be part of a place between planes, a small pocket by the name of Dementlieu. Ilai briefly takes on the form a bright teal walrus with gold whiskers, the form they usually take when traversing the waters. Everything in the Feywild is as colourful as that, it seems.
Though they wouldn’t so terribly mind being in this world forever, they wish they knew more about how we all came to be here and how we might leave. They feel there may be something we were called here to do, to answer some need. There are terrors, monsters, cults – dangers we can face and fight. Perhaps that is some encouragement, or a comfort, or it might be only flattery.
The rain subsides and dawn breaks into a bright day. When we step outside the temple, we find discarded bits of black cloth, and Raoul with a third eye embedded in his forehead.
Kaelan demands an explanation, and Raoul answers simply that “the eye and I have become one. I meditated on its powers and now it’s complete.”
Ilai asks if he feels any particular urge to kill, or destroy, but besides the strangeness of his appearance and perhaps the ability to see a half more, he seems unchanged. Not satisfied with this, Kaelan examines the eye more closely and learns that it might drive Raoul mad in not too long a time. There are people in Sophia’s Rest that might be able to help, and places we could try to visit for the same purpose, at least as a way to postpone the onset of any ill-effects. For now he seems… stable.
That day we travel through the peninsula and to the swamplands in the southern coast of the mainland. Most of the journey is calm, but we come across some ogres that we are able to circumvent them with only moderate effort, in no small part thanks to Raoul’s terrifying new visage. A low mist hangs about the swamp, which hides a few animated (and unfriendly) plants as well, and other miscellaneous swamp creatures, but these are more easily dispatched.
The night passes quietly, but Raoul is not very well in the morning and Ilai has to use some of their magic to restore him to his own mind. They stay with the admiral until the next morning, to make sure they remain well for at least another day.
