Information

The party spends the evening scrolling through the books in the library. They find a series detailing Gwen and Mav’s lives, and learn that their marriage was arranged by their mothers. Gwen is from an offshoot of the Stardragon family of Vavaire – the party speculates that Lesigha may have been her grandmother, but later finds out that she was Mav’s grandmother. Mav is from the Blackburn family, he was the heir of the estate. The marriage was arranged to foster a relationship between Isild and Vavaire during the Age of Legacy. Their arrangement grew into love, and together they had eight children. Their deaths and burials are not mentioned. The party discovers that the mine is below the keep, many levels down.

Mav’s grandfather was killed during the Kurzen’s Beckoning before Mav’s first. They understood that it happens every seventy-five years. It was assumed until now that only the Whiterose family had any sway with the Beckoning, but the party finds here that the Blackburns had a significant impact.

Violet, The Treehugger

Violet meditates in the room with the tree in the hopes of communicating with it. Sometime after meditating she gets the feeling that she can reach out to the tree and awaken it, and when she tries she is met with a flood of emotion and memories, leaving her with the feeling of love. Violet gets the feeling that the amari the tree is bonded with has experienced many things throughout HER life (keyword being her!), and that she is still alive. Violet gets the image of a young amari, around fourteen years of age, bonding with the tree. They remain bonded even to this day. Violet learns that the tree was moved here before the age of airships, and that the amari bonded to the tree is between 375 and 500 years old. The amari spent most of her life in Isild, and the tree went dormant around the same time the keep was destroyed. Violet begins to ask the tree to help remove the water from the lower floors. She can feel that the tree has secrets. It knows that the keep is not safe – she gets a glimpse of metal tools being used against stone, around five years ago, and feels that part of the psionic magic was broken.

Owlbear daddy, Raziel?

Raziel tries to handle the owlbear and it bites him. He continues to try and eventually he coerces it to eat something.

Back to Treehugging…

Violet gathers that Gwen’s amari friend gave her the idea of psionically linking the rings and scepter. From a long distance, the rings would grant great warriors power from mages that would remain safe at the keep, which was a stronghold for the mages. The leader of the Whiterose family always had at least one ring. Violet also learns that there is a safeguard built into the rings so that someone could not harm the wearer. Rings were always collected at the end of Kurzen’s Beckoning to prepare for the next generation. There have been three Beckonings since the last time the rings and scepter were used. During meditation Violet awakens with an epiphany of how and why the code was created; it was a way to protect the creation of the scepter and to hide the secrets of the Blackburn family.

Hove and Raziel find an Ildera on site that can fix their armor. The fix will be added to the tab of the keep. Veil writes Holly to come to the keep – Bastion (an ildera) deliver the letter, and the party also requests that Luca be found and brought back, if he is willing.

The Writing on the Walls

The party determines that the wall is sectioned for 17 Zodiacs in reverse order. The code is in Old Isril, a language that is no longer spoken in the area. It was previously written by local nobility. They decipher more details of Gwen and Mav’s life, and learn that Maverick was born into the Blackburn family as the sole heir. Maverick joined the Dark Knights, but later retired in order to fulfill the goal of preventing Kurzen’s Beckoning. Gwen worshiped Matron and believe the senseless death and destruction of Kurzen’s Beckoning could be prevented; she was unable to stop the Beckoning or determine why it happened, however. Unable to gain a foothold on the situation, Gwen reached out to a talented mage of Sillirai. The mage came to Isild and they banded together and created the Scepter of Guardianship and the rings. The scepter and rings successfully guarded against multiple Kurzen’s Beckonings. Being human, Gwen and Mav would not have been able to survive through two beckonings, leading the party to find that it was Gwen who discovered green glory. She was able to extend her life through the well/pool. Gwen and Maverick’s children carried the Blackburn name into the future at the end of their twilight years. Their death is not specified, but they did not make it to see a 3rd beckoning.  Lesigha is the patron matriarch of the Blackburns (Mav’s grandmother); she brought them out of the mists when manifesting the Lord sigil. It seems there had been another child born with the Lord sigil, but they were not named within the last fifty years; the sigiled births happen on a timeframe similar to Kurzen’s Beckoning.

More treehugging…

Violet spends more time with the tree and convinces the tree to help alleviate the water on the floors below. It does so by collapsing the eastern wall. A small stream of water pools in a stone basin and flows to a creek at the bottom of the hill. The tree is now growing on the side of the building. “Veil now has a sick ass bathtub.” The basin is 40ft on each side, and the tree has snaked itself around the building.

Keep update: East, south, and north walls are complete – 7 months and 14 days until completion.

Loot

• Fixed armor – in progress…
• Lots of information!
• A sick ass bathtub
• A tree friend