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Autumn in Hieron 00: We're Not Calling It Duckberg

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Autumn in Hieron 01: We Have Not Yet Begun To Be Pompous

The Isle of Eventide is equidistant between Velas and Ordenna, and the gang has been contracted to travel there in collaboration of the Ordenna and Velas governments as well as the New Archives.

Boat and Ice Party begins here, as Hella, Fero, and Lem are in one small rowboat with Hadrian and Fantasmo behind them. Fero has trouble guiding the boats to shore through the tough waves, but Fantasmo prestidigitates arrows as a sort of landing strip to guide the two boats to shore safely. Birds with people faces call to Fero and Hadrian, telling them to leave this place. Back on the beach, Lem plays a not-quite song to make Hadrian stronger when dealing damage. Fero flies to the top of the tower with the birds, who tell him that they're new to this tower but that the food is theirs. Fero assures them that he won't eat any more than they want him to. On the ground, Hadrian calls for the group to put on their armor. Lem learns that the tower was built pre-Erasure, designed and built by a civilization in south Hieron whose whole culture was focused around designing and building settlements. Fantasmo corrects Lem, saying that the physical structure was actually built by the Old University.

The party enters a small house on the way to the tower. There's practical books about woodworking and bread, as well as "fantasy Hemingway novels." Paints and painting also cover the area, paintings of ships and cliffs and a woman with a genuine smile. There is moldy and dusty bread, a few weeks or so old. A garden exists as the backyard, beautiful but slightly overgrown. Lem finds a ring of keys in a false bottom in a drawer of the bedside table. Fantasmo detects that the paints are still usable due to magic, and that there are also magical footsteps approaching the house from the tower. He turns invisible.

A dwarven skeleton opens the door, and is shaking a broom. His mouth is opening and closing, as though to yell at them, but no sound comes out. They proceed to stab Hadrian, who retaliates by slicing the skeleton, throwing them against the wall where they shatter into pieces. The skeleton chatters for a few more moments, before being still. Fero calls for "Tazzy!" and Fantasmo responds back, sounding shaken, "Is the skeleton creature dead?"

Autumn in Hieron 02: You Found Out What Was Magical

After confirming that the skeleton is destroyed, the party leaves the house on Eventide Island and proceeds to the tower. There is a smaller building connected to the tower whose entrance is sealed with a heavy stone sheet, but Hella’s attempt to lift the sheet fails.

Inside the tower, they see an entry hall, once grand but now dilapidated. Lem reasons that, given his past experience with towers, the source of the problem is likely to be atop the tower or deep under it. The party begins to ascend the tower, with Fero transforming into a hummingbird to scout ahead. On a landing, they find the remnants of a huge mural depicting the tower. After realizing that the mural was painted with the same magical paints used in the skeleton’s house, the party surmises that the skeleton had been charged with caring for the mural but had shirked his duty and chosen to paint his wife and garden instead.

On the next level, the party finds a large, bright banquet hall with no tables and hundreds of place settings laid out on the floor. The “food” being served consists of ordinary objects, like furniture or flowers or silverware, chopped up and presented as food. In an adjacent room, the kitchen is full of kitchen implements, “cooking” the objects. Using a “voice that transcends language” granted to him as a boon for this quest, Hadrian converses with a chef hat, who is polite and offers them food, but does not have any helpful information. With Hadrian as a translator, the party learns that the enchanted kitchen implements are compelled to prepare meals, even with nobody to eat them. When asked what is in the sealed room on the bottom level of the tower, the chef hat responds ominously “they don’t eat”.

Proceeding to the next floor, the party hears the sound of a waltz rhythm. They enter a library full of enchanted books, floating together to form the shapes of people. When the group disturbs the quiet of the library, the books attack. Hadrian parleys with the book people and the books agree to let them pass as long as they are quiet. In return they require Fantasmo to relinquish the books he is carrying, which join the enchanted books. As the party ascends to the next floor, the books resume their waltz.

On the next floor is a hallway, with doors to the left and right leading to a storeroom and an armory. Directly ahead is an ornate bedroom, with a mural like the one on the landing just above the ground floor of the tower. Seated on a chair in that bedroom is a figure in black and gold armor. Upon seeing the players, the figure ask asks “What is it?"

Autumn in Hieron 03: A Podcast About Listening

In the tower on Eventide Island, the party has found a bedroom, where a figure in black and gold lacquered armor, sits in a chair. This man, Rivallo, claims to serve “good king Samot”, and his armor bears a symbol that looks like a variant of the symbol for Samothes, the god worshipped by Hadrian. Hadrian invokes divine authority, incorrectly surmising that he and Rivallo worship the same god.

When Rivallo concludes that the party does not serve Samot, he calls to his compatriots Calithane and Brutus to help him thwart the party in combat. At the first sign of trouble, Fantasmo turns invisible. Rivallo advances into the hallway and slices at Fero, who avoids the attack by transforming into a cougar.

Lem performs pattern magic on his violin to increase the power of Hella’s attacks, and Hella strikes with her sword at a gap in Rivallo’s armor, dealing a serious wound to his left side. However, Rivallo lands a hit on Hella as well, and Lem’s violin draws the attention of Brutus, who is standing in the bedroom behind Rivallo. Brutus fires an arrow at Lem, but Hadrian rushes to defend, deflecting the arrow so that it lodges harmlessly in Lem’s armor.

Fero lunges at Rivallo, biting down on the wound left by Hella’s blade, but the enchantment on Rivallo’s armor burns Fero’s mouth. Fero recoils and Rivallo slashes at him, wounding him badly. Lem attempts to heal Fero with another pattern magic song on the violin, but the healing effect is only slight.

From the armory to the right of the party, Calithane enters the hallway, advancing past the invisible Fantasmo and raising her massive hammer to swing at the party. With a single continuous hand gesture, Fero cancels his invisibility and casts magic missiles—semi-transparent purple arrows of pure magical energy—at Calithane’s head. Hurt and dazed by the missiles, Calithane swings around to attack. Fantasmo is out of reach, but Calithane’s hammer hits the wall and it crumbles, tearing a new gap between the hallway and the bedroom. As Calithane advances to attack Fantasmo, Hadrian attacks her from behind with his halberd, but scores only a minor blow. Calithane swings her hammer back at Hadrian, knocking him backwards into the storeroom on the left side of the hallway.

Hoping that the storeroom might be a more advantageous position for a fight, Hella attempts to grab Fero’s injured cougar form and carry him there. However, an arrow shot by Brutus catches her armor and pins her down in the hallway, and she only manages to push Fero into the storeroom.

Lem stows his violin on his back and draws his dueling rapier, charging past Rivallo and toward Brutus into the bedroom. As Lem enters the bedroom, Rivallo grabs his shoulder from behind and thrusts his short sword at Lem.

Calithane swings her hammer at Hella, who manages to fend her off despite being pinned to the floor. Calithane stumbles backward into Fantasmo, disrupting his spell as he attempts to turn invisible once again. Both Calithane and Fantasmo are knocked through the gap in the wall and into the bedroom.

Autumn in Hieron 04: Is It Time Already?

In the tower on Eventide Island, the party is engaged in combat with Rivallo, Calithane, Brutus. Fero, still in the form of a cougar, lunges to bite Calithane in the back of the neck. As Calithane struggles to tear Fero away, Hella, having removed the bolt pinning her to the floor, charges at Calithane and strikes a fatal blow through her stomach. Fero transforms back into a Halfling.

Angered, Rivallo casts an enchantment to yank the weapons from the party’s hands. Fero maintains his grip, but misses a swipe at Rivallo. Brutus’s knife is torn from his hand by the enchantment and strikes Fero. As Lem struggles to maintain a hold on his rapier, Fantasmo casts a Light cantrip to illuminate his staff as it flies from his hands. This distracts Brutus momentarily, and Fantasmo casts magic missiles at his back. He fumbles the casting slightly, causing him to forget the spell, but nevertheless the missiles hit Brutus and kill him.

Hella’s sword is unaffected by Rivallo’s enchantment. She strikes through his armor, taking a blow to her shoulder in return. Fero shoots an arrow at Rivallo, but misses and hits Hella. Lem attempts a slash, but Rivallo blocks it and knocks the rapier from his hand. Rivallo grasps Lem by the neck, and the touch of Rivallo’s armor burns Lem’s skin. Hadrian, who has been investigating the storeroom area, hears the sound of the struggle and rushes back into the fray. Hadrian thrusts his halberd directly into the symbol on Rivallo’s chest, striking a fatal blow. As Rivallo dies, his last words are “he lives.”

After the fight, the party investigates the area. Fantasmo replenishes his bag of books with volumes from Rivallo’s bedroom, including a book called “The Canon of Samot.” Lem investigates the marks on the faces of their late adversaries, and learns through pattern magic that the mark exists throughout the tower, and that the mark has become aware of his presence. Investigating the armory, Fantasmo finds a strange crack in the wall. Fero and Hella both examine the armory’s supply of knives, and take a few.

Hadrian returns to his investigation of the storeroom area, where he has found the entrance to a war room. This room contains an octagonal table showing a map of Hieron, very old and much finer than the maps the party has seen. The map is partially a diorama, and some of the pieces have been moved recently. Among the pieces are several “plumbob” crystal markers, including a blue marker on their current location, a green marker on the Mark of the Erasure, and a light brown marker just to the south of Rosemerrow. There are several other plumbob pieces on the map, but they are colorless and knocked over. Also on the table is an iron crown with a symbol of the sun. The crown is warm to the touch, and Hadrian senses that it is evil.

In the bedroom, Fantasmo detects that Ribvallo’s armor and mask are magical. As Lem investigates the mask, some enchantment compels him to put it on. Under its sway, Lem walks to the war room and approaches Hadrian. Under a similar influence, Hadrian puts the crown on Lem. Both of them have a vision of a man with wavy golden hair, who wears the crown as a crowd outside chants “Samot! Samot!” The man whispers “Is it time already?" The mask falls from Lem’s face and he comes to his senses, but he is left with burns. Hadrian is profoundly disturbed by this interaction, and he is eager to advance to the next floor of the tower. Before they move on, Fero pockets the plumbob pieces.

As the party continues ascending the tower, Fero turns into a hummingbird once again. The upper part of the tower has largely collapsed, so that they can see the sun setting in the sky. On the penultimate floor of the tower there are numerous chests filled with gold and gems, and the party resolves to take as much as they can when they leave. Lem notices a broken down door which has sprouted humanoid arms and legs—evidently it had been animated at some point, but then later killed. There are stairs winding up the surviving walls of the tower that lead to a platform, the highest remaining part of the tower. Fantasmo listens closely to hear if he can detect any signs of magic, and he hears two humming sounds—one coming from the platform above, the other coming from Hella’s sword.

The party finally ascends to the top platform of the tower, where they see a number of tables and chairs lined in front of a dais. The dais has cracked, and in front of the dais is a large book, whose cover bears the same symbol that appeared on the faces of Rivallo, Brutus, and Calithane. Cautiously, Fantasmo approaches the book and opens it with his staff. In doing this, Fantasmo shoves the book out of the sunlight and into the shadow. Fantasmo senses a magical reaction from the tower like a sigh of relief, and the entire party realizes that a low hum of white noise they have all been hearing has suddenly stopped. However, Fantasmo still hears a hum emanating from the broken dais and from Hella’s sword.

Fantasmo examines the now-open book and determines its purposes. The runes in the book establish an automated magical system that brings objects to life to act out their teleological purpose—for a knife, to chop; for a kitchen, to cook; for waves, to crash against the shore. The book’s automated magic evidently went haywire at some point in the recent past when the book was knocked off the dais and into the sunlight, which caused not only the unusual waves that have disturbed the waters around Velas and Ordenna, but also the odd phenomena that the party members have seen while ascending the tower.

Fantasmo notices that in reaction to the book, the hum he hears from Hella’s sword is becoming louder. He picks the book up and approaches Hella with it, which causes the hum to intensify. Hella can now hear it too, but for Hella, the sound of the hum takes on the sound of words—“Hella, Hella.” She begins to draw her sword and the hum increases. Fantasmo accuses Hella of keeping secrets from the rest of the party. The rest of the party, who cannot hear the sounds Hella and Fantasmo are hearing, are unsure what to make of this interaction.

An argument ensues regarding what should be done with the book. Fantasmo wishes to take it from the tower. Hadrian vehemently disagrees; although he does not sense evil from the book itself, he finds it disturbing and does not want to be near it. Fantasmo chides Hadrian for being suspicious of the book, opining that magical spells and artifacts cannot be evil, it is only the things that people choose to do with them that can be evil: “Magic is no more evil than the wind.” Hadrian sighs and responds, “Of course the wind can be evil.” Hella broadly agrees with Hadrian’s aversion to the book. Lem argues that that the book should be returned to the dais, because that seems to be its intended place in the pattern, an argument Fantasmo finds equally absurd. Only Fero doesn’t object to Fantasmo taking the book. Ultimately the others give in rather than pressing the argument, and Fantasmo gets his way.

On the way out, the party collects a sizable pile of gold and gems, some of which are shared with the expedition leader Calhoun. Their mission has been accomplished, although various members of the party are now angry and suspicious of one another as a result of their disagreement. The party returns to Velas and reports their findings. The authorities are very interested in the plumbob markers from the war room map, and consider having the party split up to investigate those locations: one party to investigate the Mark of the Erasure, and the other party to investigate the site to the south of Rosemerrow.

Autumn in Hieron 05: What's a Good Name For A Ship?

Lem, Fero, and Hella run into one another, in the pub where Lem has been laying low. While talking, they meet Gregalos and spend some time drinking and talking with him (except for Fero, who does not usually eat or drink). Gregalos (known to friends as “Greggy”) tells them of his adventures, and asks them about their recent adventure. When Lem alludes to the book that they found in the tower, Greggy becomes excited, making it clear that he has some knowledge of the tower but declining to say more.

Greggy asks the three of them to investigate a tower south of Rosemerrow, and retrieve a similar book that is said to be in that tower. He is anxious that the book not fall into the hands of the New Archives, and warns the party that the book is dangerous and they must not read it. Upon hearing this, Fero asks whether the book from Eventide might be similarly dangerous, and tells Greggy that Fantasmo has it. Greggy promises to look into it, and gives them a ring, telling them that if they show that ring, they should be able to make travel arrangements on his credit.

Two hooded orcs enter the pub along with two Velas guards, looking for Lem. Greggy quietly excuses himself, and Lem flees upstairs, leaving his violin behind at the table. Fero notices this and stows it on his back. The guards ask speak to Fero and Hella, but Fero successfully convinces them that he hasn’t seen Lem. As the guards and orcs leave, Lem recognizes one of the hooded figures as the famed Archivist-Collector Morbash. Morbash has a reputation for relentless pursuit, and Lem determines that he needs to get out of Velas as soon as possible.

Lem, Fero, and Hella discuss how best to proceed with their mission. Despite Fero’s nervousness around the sea, they decide to leave Velas by boat. That night they find Captain Calhoun drinking and carousing with his crew in a bar. Calhoun drunkenly agrees to take the party south toward Rosemerrow. Calhoun excitedly declares a “Boat Party!”, and he leads the party, his crew, and a crowd of miscellaneous revelers from the bar on to his ship.

Lem examines Gregalos’s ring, which bears a strange symbol: Three parallel lines of different lengths. Lem recalls from his studies at the New Archives that this symbol represents a group of researchers that operated prior to the Erasure, and that the three lines represent the past, present, and future. Lem confides in Fero and Hella that he is unsure whether to trust Gregalos, and that he wants them to consider double-crossing him as an option.

Calhoun continues announcing “Boat Party!” and this apparently serves as a well-known signal to the crew and revelers. The boat sets off late at night, with the revelers still on board. Fero manages to convince them to take the party belowdecks, but the party continues for two days out of Velas. On the third day, the waves become choppy and the ship drifts in the direction of a rocky outcropping. Hella sees another ship approaching them: the Kingdom Come, the ship belonging her old adversary Captain Brandish. The party has a choice: they can either steer the ship into the rocks, or straighten course and confront the Kingdom Come...

Autumn in Hieron 06: A Bad Trip

The Council of Velas has requested the help of Fantasmo and Hadrian to investigate the Mark of the Erasure, a mysterious region of Hieron that is thought to hold answers of the origin of the Erasure cataclysm. The Council enlists Throndir, a snow elf that grew up in the surrounding Algid Pinelands, and his mastiff Kodiak to act as guides.

The group gathers supplies and sets off, dealing with increasingly cold weather as they approach the Mark. After days of traveling, avoiding a hunting party of goblins, and talking around the lingering tensions about the events that occurred on Eventide, the party is attacked by an Owlbear as they make camp.

A fight breaks out and after trying and failing to attack with Magic Missles, Fantasmo falls back onto his standby Invisibility Spell. As he lingers invisible, Fantasmo notices that his own distant surroundings start to lose their clarity and that the world around him has slowly begun to warp into a starfield.

Meanwhile Hadrian, an injured Throndir, and Kodiak dispatch the Owlbear, which Throndir notices has uncharacteristically traveled outside of its territory. The enemy defeated, Fantasmo calls out to the group, explaining his circumstance as he realizes he cannot remember how to undo the invisibility spell.

Autumn in Hieron 07: Boat Party?

The Kingdom Come approaches. Lem leaves the choice—pilot the ship into craggy rocks, or regain control and remain in Brandish's path—to Hella. Hella assumes that he is on his way to take his revenge against her. Since she's killed him before, she decides to take her chances against him a second time: she tells Calhoun to maintain course. Lem suggests to her that it would be advantageous to steal the Kingdom Come, should the opportunity arise.

Some of Calhoun's crew starts loading the cannons. Through her spyglass, Hella sees that Brandish's crew is comprised of undead skeletons. Lem goes belowdeck and drums up the crew's courage. The Kingdom Come fires at Calhoun's boat, and Hella returns fire. Fero turns into an eagle and tries to attack the Kingdom Come's sails, but his wing is pierced by a javelin.

Lem's pattern magic is overwhelmed by the war drumming from musicians of the Kingdom Come. Fero recovers, grabs Brandish with his talons, and throws him into the ocean. Hella has Calhoun's crew throw their grappling hooks to lock the Kingdom Come into position. They board the ship and Hella engages undead pirates in sword combat.