Back in Sigil, the gang does a bit of shopping, gets a bit of breakfast, and discuss with Shallows about returning the Lantern they’d got from his friend Ardent.
Uzi and Diafani stay at the house for a while, and when they leave for breakfast, the two are holding hands.
Shallows needs help with a play he’s throwing – he doesn’t actually have the money to pay his actors, so he needs Cranzalar, Vi, and Uzi to star. They’re reluctant, but his friend Ardent will be attending and they need to get their collateral back. No play, no Ring of Wishes.
The play is ably performed by the three budding thespians, though Shallows isn’t very good and also has a massive fucking ego.
Returning Ardent’s lantern, Vi grills him on just why he’s helping. He says they have mutual enemies, and that he’s interested in peace returning to the planes. Vi absolutely doesn’t trust this, even using magic to see that Ardent definitely has a divine influence, but assuming he’s maybe an Aasimar and leaving it at that.
Returning home to the Regicider base on Floodwall (with Shallows and Diafani staying in Sigil, and Bailiff and Zelena heading back to the Plane of Water) the three decide that their next step is to head down to where they think Czerna might be – at the very bottom of the city, where the spike first pinned a tendril of the Leviathan.
Before they can go, they check in on the city’s status – it seems that the Church forces have largely retreated, and the rebellion is now in control of the majority of the city. Also Redford is still in prison. And something is watching the three of them as they stand in their base, but they can’t pinpoint it.
They journey down, finding that the tide had risen, and travel along the route they’d travelled when they were last down here, and they first met Zelena as a group.
The tunnels and caverns are overgrown with dusky pink vines. That feeling of being watch returns as well, and after some inspection, several of Czerna’s shadowy assassins appear. The party deftly deals with them, with Cranzalar doing like 800 damage I think.
The feeling of being watched hadn’t subsided, but the group presses on.
Upon reaching the centre spire, they find the source of all the vines: a huge brain, growing out of a small jar of mayonnaise. The Illithid they’d polymorphed and left submerged in magic mayo had mutated into this, and its cholesterol is absolutely terrible.
They destroy it and prepare to dig.
But Uzi has seen an opportunity to check in on what Aurifar is doing, if he’s even still in the picture – she leaps out to touch the spire, and has a vision just like when she first touched it.
She finds herself stood in a familiar place – the bedrooms of the Regicider base. Zelena snores in the corner, and Bailiff sleeps nearby, blissfully unable to hear.
A figure stands in the room, and turns to Uzi. ‘It’s been a while,’ he says. ‘I suppose I’ve been unmasked.’
It’s Ardent.
‘What the fuck are you doing here, dickbag?!’ says Uzi.
‘I simply have–’ begins Ardent.
Uzi launches a sixth-level Lightning Bolt right into his face, interrupting him.
‘Get out,’ she says.
Ardent – Aurifar – clutches his face. There’s a crack in it, and light is spilling out. Uzi leaps forward and tries to tear it wider, but he throws her off.
‘I don’t know if you think you have nothing to lose,’ he snarls, ‘or just that I wouldn’t take it from you.’
He marches over to Zelena’s sleeping form. ‘You can go now,’ he says. His hand shoots out, and Uzi is thrown from the vision.
Cranzalar and Vi are there to catch her, and she tells them they need to get back to the base, almost incoherently.
(Fun fact! Since the Mind Spider no longer exists, Aurifar has access to divination magic and can Scry on you, making you feel like you’re being watched!)
But they’re interrupted by Czerna. That ballroom she so favours appears around them, and she appears not as a shadow, but as herself. She wants to make a deal – something is hunting her, so she wants to offer her surrender if they’ll let her leave the city. They can be in charge now.
‘You aren’t in much of a position to bargain,’ says Cranzalar, evenly.
Uzi is frantic. ‘We need to leave, Czerna. You have nothing to offer! You let us leave, or you die!’
Vi subtly prepares to cast Sunbeam down through the floor.
Czerna admits she’s been having dreams of Aurifar coming back to retake his power. She hasn’t lived this long to be snuffed out now. She recognises Uzi’s urgency and says she’ll let them go if they promise to let her go.
It’s no deal. Vi and Uzi destroy the floor, though even as they land the illusory ballroom stays fixed around them.
Cranzalar focuses, and his sight is able to pierce the veil for just a moment. He sees a skeleton knelt in the corner, arms chained to the base of the spire. Its bones are black, and it has a broken horn. Its ribcage holds a still beating heart. Cranzalar casts Shatter, and Czerna’s illusion drops.
Cranzalar steps forwards and brutally drives his Booming Blade through the skeleton, ending Czerna.
The three of them rush back to the base, and find Bailiff missing, and Zelena dying in her bed.
Uzi rushes in and manages to find a pulse – she’s still holding on. Zelena’s eyes fix on her daughter’s, and her hand grips Uzi’s weakly.
Vi has been readying to cast True Resurrection if necessary, but seeing that Zelena is still barely breathing, she channels a massively powerful Regenerate, and somehow fixes the damage to Zelena’s soul.
‘Bastard tore my spark out,’ coughs Zelena. ‘…Glad you’re here.’
(Fun fact! If they’d waited and attempted to resurrect her, it would have failed! Her soul wouldn’t be ‘free to return’, since Aurifar would be in possession of the spark it was attached to! Wow!)
Cranzalar carried Zelena to Sigil, so she could recover somewhere safe. Vi and Uzi searched for clues on Bailiff’s status, but could only confirm that Bailiff hadn’t been killed, and that Aurifar had taken the Iron Flask with Mavi in it.
The house in Sigil was a mess too. Shallows’ bed was just drenched in blood, with his body nowhere to be found. Diafani’s room was empty.
Fortunately, when Aurifar had been searching for her, she wasn’t in her bed.
She was waiting in Uzi’s. Everyone got an eyeful except, sadly, Uzi herself.
A plan was made once Diafani had gotten dressed. She’d need to find somewhere to hole up for a while, as if Aurifar was active again, she’d be in danger.
Vi, Cranzalar, and Uzi would track him down and deal with him. They didn’t quite have a plan on how to do that yet, but there wasn’t time to waste.
They set out to rescue their friend and kill a God.
Roll History 