With Millan Rourke's death, our long side-track through the cult of Bascaron in Valen has ended. The mysterious woman turned out to be no woman at all, but a Phoelarc, who led us with subtle clues (the Mournish coin, the theft of my Spire pendant) to discover and dissect the local cultists and their allies. Her ultimate goal was the release of her mate, now a Phoera, from Millan's menagerie.
She rewarded us well in gold and in information, introducing us to the esoteric Tellers, an extraplanar race of librarians and historians. The Tellers brought us a record of Jartik's deal with a Verdant Prince named Witchthorn to locate his master. Jartik had killed a previous headmaster of the wizard's academy as payment, which led tangentially to the peripheral involvement of the Aranea, Katlyn.
As usual, we didn't understand what was going on until it was over, but at least this time our puppetmaster was benign, well-motivated, and well-connected. We made enemies among the cult of Bascaron and the pirates, but that's par for the course.
Finished with Valen for the time being, we shadow walked off to Myreth Forest to find Witchthorn. Livia had heard of him, and even knew where we could go to find him: in hindsight we should have questioned her in detail about how she knew so much. Upon reaching a mushroom-warded glade, Livia told us to wait outside and called for the Fey to appear. And that's when things went in an entirely unexpected direction.
As we later came to understand, Livia had made a terrible bargain with this Verdant Prince: in exchange for her growing power and a Fey connection to dodge her impending Elf-hasty mortality, she was to deliver fifty thousand gold pieces worth of gems and a cornucopia of vile materials. Livia hoped to kill the Fey in this one confrontation, and be free of her burden.
Sadly, she chose not to tell us what was going on, and doesn't seem to care that we need Witchthorn to find Jartik. Malakar's success rate at speaking with the dead has been less than stellar, and I suspect that we'll need more from Witchthorn than an X on a map.
When Livia made to attack Witchthorn without provocation, I prepared to disable her. Unfortunately, none of my spells stuck (she remained most un-turtle-like), and Witchthorn's swift retaliation took her out of the fight before most of us could react (Malakar's pillar of fire was impressive, but didn't seem to alarm Witchthorn too much).
With Livia pinned unconscious by a newly-awakened Oaken Guardian, Witchthorn offered us a dubious deal: if we assumed shared responsibility for Livia's debt, then he would help us reach Jartik. Which leaves us with a debate; deal sincerely, deal falsely, fight, run? Do we leave Livia to her fate, justified by her secrecy and unilateralism? Do we assume her burden and risk the treachery of the Fey? Do we fight (so many reasons)?
We've come this far, I think we need to deal to continue. The question then becomes: who will break faith and when? And the small matter of obtaining the vile goods the Fey has demanded without tainting our souls beyond recovery: perhaps another evil could be defeated in order to satisfy this one, but life doesn't always offer such neat packages. Premeditated vile deeds are far from any path of wisdom and truth that I have known; violence and chaos dog our heels, but our shadow does not yet fall as evil.
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