Farah and Silenne, under advisement, make their way to look at Damien’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
It’s a somewhat larger tent, midnight-blue, covered in arcane symbols and sigils. Entering the tent, there is a strange smell – or rather, smells. Incense, preservatives, varnish, mingling with the smells of circus food and crowds.
One of the large centerpieces is what appears to be a great cat, its fur a deep bluish-black – with six legs, and two leathery tentacles, propped up with stakes, coiling out of its back. There are many other impressive things – beholder eyes, what is supposedly the hand of a hag, soul jars, and countless other trinkets.
In the back is a gentlemen in a very fine, somewhat flamboyant suit – a gaunt man, with pale skin, short grey hair, and a Van Dyke moustache and beard. He greets them in a surprisingly resonant voice. “Hello and welcome to my Cabinet of Curiosities. Please, peruse at your leisure – if you have questions, I may have answers, but mystery is half the fun.”
Silenne is cringing a bit at the pickled body parts, this is a bit much for her, but she follows along as Fara beams, examining everything. “Do you have any… cursed artifacts?”
As he leads them to see some ‘riskier’ artifacts, another thing catches her eye – a deer skull, painted black, with unfamiliar gold coins in its eye sockets. She recognizes this – it’s religious iconography, but two religions – the gold coins are symbols of Tymora, a goddess of good fortune, but the blackened antlers are a symbol of Beshaba, a goddess of bad fortune. They’re rivals, sometimes believed to be split from one original deities, and this icon is very heretical.
As she mulls over this, Damian leads them to the hag’s hand – “Watch!” – and taps on the glass. The hand clenches, and claws at the glass. [“I drag Silenne closer to the jar!”] Silenne is terrified and disgusted. “Don’t be afraid, my dear, it’s perfectly safe – as long as it’s sealed in the jar.”
The next cursed item he shows them is a rondel dagger, in a familiar northern Almauran style. It has a familiar story – it is one a minor noble used to murder his entire family. It is said to be imbued with malice and a lust for revenge. It is mounted and sheathed. When Damien turns aside, Fara locks eyes with Silenne and reaches out to touch it, dodging Silenne as she tries to swat her away.
As she touches it, a whisper sounds in her head, and she starts to wrap her fingers around the hilt- and she’s snapped out of it as Silenne pulls her away. Fara decides not to touch anything else. Damian has a small smirk when he leads them to the next thing.
Fara proceeds to roll VERY BADLY on insight, and ends up VERY intimidated by Damian, especially once she comments on the skull and he tells her he made it herself.
Fara is rather pale. “Please don’t let me touch anything. Ever again.” Silenne is in quite a huff. “As if I could stop you!” “That one was real.”
With long flowing violet hair, in the most incredible dress that Fara has seen that she did not create herself – ephemeral, as if it’s layers of nebulous shadow coalesced around her – is a woman ahead of them, kneeling to greet some children. She holds out her hand and produces from nothing a small dragon, which grows larger and leaps from her hands, flying into the air to the children’s wonder. She catches it back in her hands, shrinking it down to nothing as they close, and then she opens them again to reveal a flower, a minute pixie dancing atop it. Again, she closes her hands, then reveals a handful of glitter, which she blows all over the children, as she sends them off to their dour-looking parents. She rises to her full, towering height. Her dress is in clearer view now, looking like sunset over the ocean, awe-inspiring.
Fara and Silenne are making a beeline over toward her.
“That – dress – is incredible.”
The woman presses a hand to her chest, nodding graciously. She makes a series of gestures, unspeaking. Silenne leans over to say “She says she made it herself. She thanks you for the high compliment, and says you are beautifully attired yourself.”
Fara is barely restraining herself from reaching out to grab at the woman’s dress, asking more. She takes out a small scroll, and flicks it, showing her the page as script appears upon it. I wove it from magic. It’s illusory thread, woven over again and again, until it becomes real enough, tangible, to function as a kind of cloth. It took over a month to create it. She holds out a layer for Fara to feel – it’s somewhat like touching a cobweb, as though her fingers are passing through it, but the semicorporeal fabric is undamaged. There is a texture to it, satiny.
“This is remarkable. I suppose it’s not something just anyone could make, only a master illusionist.” She smiles broadly. “I don’t suppose I could possibly beg you to make something like this for me?” She stops, considers, taps. It would take quite some time. Perhaps a week. But I could create something small for you, to attire you during your time here.
She gestures carefully, drawing shadow between her hands, weaving it carefully. It slowly begins to take on color, bleeding in, shifting to a slate-blue ribbon that she draws out, shimmering and shifting, faintly iridescent as it catches the light. She ties it back onto itself, forming a sort of barette, which she offers to tie into Fara’s hair, gently, fingers lightly brushing against her cheek as she works, until it is set perfectly. She beams, watching with her bright gold eyes. She refuses Fara’s considerable offer of coin, places her hand over heart, and taps again. For the wonderful compliment. This will not last, unfortunately. “It’s incredible.” Where can I find you for a more lasting work? Fara gives the name of their inn.
Silenne finally butts in – “Excuse me. I am Silenne, this is-“ “-Fara Undertree!” “-and I just realized we’ve been terribly rude, I’m so sorry.”
Medea signs out her name to them – Fara extends a hand, clasping her other over as well once Medea takes it. “My pleasure.” I hope to see you again very soon.
Before she can continue, she looks past them, slightly concerned. Fara turns to see four men in various dress, looking angry and intent on Medea. “Where is he?” “Where’s my boy!?” They bear down on her. Fara and Nisha pop their heads out nearby, coming over to interevene as they slap the paper out of Medea’s hand and Fara pipes up in fury.
After Nisha manages to send the men away, Liriel signs a question to Medea – You don’t think, that thing I saw last night? – Maybe. Talk later, she signs back, looking nervously at Silenne. Fara and Silenne start asking more probing questions about the disappearances, and Medea excuses herself to find Oz. There have been about a kid a day [“or night, as it were”] going missing – at least, of children that people notice going missing. Liriel tries to deflect, and Fara sees right fucking through her – she’s innocent, but she’s not letting on to things.
After they excuse themselves, Fara and Silenne go to see Suraan. There’s a table set out, with quite a line, for the massive dragonborn woman. She is immense, dressed in a fine but simple outfit, colors of the circus dark against her rust-red scales. There is a serpentine motif to her clothes. Her face is scarred with massive claw marks.
Currently, she is locked in arm-wrestling with a beleaguered, doughy-looking baker, struggling dramatically. She shows no sign of strain as she presses the baker’s arm to the ground. She makes a ‘gimme’ motion, he flips her a coin, and she gestures for the next person in line.
Fara gestures. “Want to take a try?” Silenne boggles slightly. “She would destroy me.” “But you would look beautiful being destroyed by- oh! You meant arm wrestling!” Silenne is bright pink, and mutters “I think you should try.” “Alright! Why not!” She drags Silenne over to the queue. “Not what I usually do, but if it would entertain you!”
The queue moves fairly quick, though Suraan “likes to play with her food,” baiting people, sometimes letting them think they’ve come close.
Suraan appraises Fara with her striking aqua eye as her turn comes. She’s hard to read – [“roll insight to see if she wants to fuck”] – it’s Fara’s first time seeing a dragonborn in person, and they don’t emote quite like humanoids. But she seems amused, and slightly curious.
Fara makes a show of cracking her knuckles – Suraan gives a low chuckle, and says something in Draconic as she leans in to offer her hand. Silenne responds in Draconic, and Suraan gives what might be a snarl, or a smile. Fara is busily rolling up her sleeves so as to protect her dress. “Excuse me? I would prefer you speak to me, not about me!” “Fine. You know my name. And yours?” “Fara Undertree, of Vassarein. Pleasure to meet you!”
They get to it – her grip is not painful, but very firm, inescapable. Fara is nearly overwhelmed quickly, but rallies, regaining some. “Your friend is right – you are surprising.” She continues, straining with all her might, and making some progress, pushing Suraan back, and more – and suddenly she pushes HARDER, flipping their hands back the other way. Rows of gleaming fangs are bared as she prepares for victory – but doesn’t budge. This continues, back and forth.
“And here I thought you were ready to lay down.” “Oh, I need a bit more encouragement for that!”
She’s going harder, going in for the kill, and Fara, flushed and straining, manages to push her back. Suraan is clearly straining as well now, a small gasp of mist coming from her mouth as she pants slightly. “Encouragement, you say? I’d be happy to give you that! […] What kind of encouragement do you respond to?” “G-gentler encouragement, usually!” “When I get off work – I can show you gentle!”
[there are SO MANY ROLLS back and forth. “this is a really gay stalemate!”] Suraan’s eye doesn’t leave her, seething rage coming to the surface.
Finally, finally, Suraan manages to force Fara’s hand to the table. The scales of her hand are surprisingly smooth, like snakeskin, not rough at all.
Suraan reaches out to clasp her hand, shaking it. “You may not have bested me – but quite a surprise.” “Is that the best you can show me?” “There’s a lot I could show you!” “Not in public, darling.”
[We segue into talking about the carnie characters being thots, aside from Ozvaldo. He and Medea are not completely exclusive, though, #confirmed! That said, she does not date coworkers. Me: “but I’ve got a character who isn’t a coworker! although, she isn’t a thot. I didn’t think this through.” “and she has a girlfriend! You didn’t think this through at all.” “that said, even if she weren’t in the circus, I don’t think Liriel would. I think she sees Medea sort of as a mother figure.”]
Silenne beams at Fara as they walk away. “You did REALLY well! I was joking, but you really had her on the ropes there!”
After whiling away more of the afternoon at the carnival, Silenne excuses herself, saying she has a personal matter to attend to, and refuses to comment further. Fara can’t really read her. After MUCH cajoling, Silenne admits she’s going to the library.
[“Fara immediately goes to the curiosity cabinet!”]
A couple hours later, Silenne rejoins Fara at the circus, bringing her a delicious little tart as a gift. The crowds are starting to gather as dusk approaches, and they enter the big tent, and the show begins.
Silenne’s piece is a massive, dramatic performance, acrobatics and dancing and so very much fire as Nisha builds in a crescendo. It ends with a dramatic bow, and Liriel’s hardest task
“And now, for our grand finale. We will tell a tale of love that transcends death, of terrible betrayal. We present to you the Tragedy of Kairon and Orianna.”
Fara recognizes this – it’s a play by Dionisia Melani, Kazalian playwright. The play is fairly new, but the myth it’s based on is far older.
Silenne also recognizes this, and looks quite concerned. The lights whiff out as Osvaldo leaves the stage, leaving a very soft light. Medea is left on stage, and she conjures images of a tiefling like herself, a man, and a human woman. There is no dialogue, the play delivered through gesture and expression of the characters.
It is the story of a tiefling paladin, who falls in love with a human noblewoman, who he discovers is bound to a lord of hell. She is doomed, and dies, soul snatched away, but the paladin does not give up. He gathers allies, great heroes, and they follow, descending into the hells. There are many battles, and as he descends through the layers of hell, he loses something at each level. A friend. A principle. He becomes colder, harder, as he descends, grim in his determination.
As he enters Malebolge, the prison of hell, he encounters no resistance. He sees his love, Orianna, standing before him – and shed her form, becoming the archfiend, Glasya. Orianna never existed. She reaches out to take his hand, and he walks with her, to stay in hell forevermore.
As Medea dissipates her illusions, some wisps of shadow remain, coalescing back into figures as she looks around in concern. Four tieflings, somewhat resembling Medea – a man, woman, and two children. These figures are in sharper detail than her previous illusions. They look pained, sad, wanting as they approach her, and she shrinks back, waving her hands as though to dispel the illusion, but they keep coming, closing.
Liriel and Nisha rush onto the stage at this point, trying to protect her. As Liriel interposes herself between Medea and the figures, and they clutch at themselves, screaming, bursting into flames, consuming their bodies. Medea collapses, hands clasped in front of her mouth – Liriel tries to pick her up and bring her away. and Damien bursts onto stage, shouts “ENOUGH!” and brandishes a pendant, dispelling the figures. Nisha rushes to him “What was that?” “I don’t know! But someone is playing games with us!”
He performs the outro, somewhat more coarsely than Ozvaldo, trying to get the crowd to leave.
Ozvaldo has also rushed to Medea’s side. “No, don’t move her – find who did this.” Liriel and Nisha start to scan the crowds, looking for what’s going on.
Fara hears an elderly human woman saying ‘Cecile? Cecile, where are you?’
Liriel sees a small girl leaving the tent, unaccompanied, engrossed by the spectacle. She rushes to follow and check on her, and Nisha follows as she rushes off.
Outside the tent, she finds a small piece of black ribbon, and footprints leading off. She breaks out into a run, following the trail, and hears a scream, “HELP!”
Back behind, the older woman is shouting “That’s Cecile! Help her!” as she struggles to hurry along.
Liriel sees the creature from the previous night, which has the little girl bound, maw open, color draining out of the girl, energy flowing into it. Behind it, the ground is warped, like a burrow leading deep into the earth. It gives way to stone stairs descending. The creature is leading the little girl down into the burrow – Liriel grabs for her, tries to punch the monster, and finally manages to catch hold of the girl. The creature lets out an abominable snarl, and releases the girl, lashing out at Liriel and grabbing onto her instead.
Fara rushes in next, and smashes the thing in the head with her purse. It looks like an antiquated elven jester, curls of doll hair from its head, busted porcelain-doll face with its mouth opened, revealing a long purple tongue. Its head goes level with its shoulders with a sickening crack, then cracks again back into place. It says in a different voice, “Hey! You don’t belong here!”
As Nisha enters, it snarls and hisses at her light. Liriel bursts through the tendrils and makes a break for it with the girl, very narrowly missing a lash from the tendrils thanks to Nisha’s cutting words. She shoots her a wink as she passes, “My savior!” as she gets the girl out of the burrow. Her mother shouts “Cecile!” as Liriel emerges with her.
The monster snarls up at her, but then turns to attack Fara. It swipes at her and grabs her, then tries to drain her emotions. Fara fights it off, but feels a sort of rush, as happy memories bubble to the surface.
Silenne shouts, “Get off her, monster!” and rushes in, stabbing into the side of its neck. There is some resistance as she tries to dig into the porcelain-like ‘skin’ of the creature, but it still recoils from her.
Fara struggles with the creature, but fails to escape. Memories of dressing Castia come to the forefront of her mind as it curses her.
Nisha creates a blast of thunder, knocking the creature off of Fara but also blasting back Silenne. Liriel urges the girl back towards her mother, saying “Take her! Run!”, then turns back to the monster, saying “You don’t like light, hmm? Well, how do you feel about FIRE?!” Flaming dragons manifest around her fist and arc out from her punches towards it, burning it. The fire lights up the space inside the doll-face somewhat, illuminating the emptiness inside – but only somewhat, the darkness within stifling it.
The creature hisses and retreats, scuttling far down into the pit and out of sight.
(It’s noted for everyone in the pit that there is an extreme feel to it – an intense chill, and a feeling of dread and emptiness. The world does not feel the same within the burrow – but the feeling is gone completely when out of it.)
As the creature vanishes, the burrow and stairs begin to crumble apart, filling up. We rush out as it seals up, leaving no trace, as though it had never been there at all.
We head to the mother and child, examining her. She appears completely drained of color, her eyes dark and glassy. Her gray complexion, similar to that of the creature, is in stark contrast to her mother next to her. She has rope-burn-like bruise marks on her arms where the tendrils were wrapped around her.
Nisha heals the girl and tries to dispel whatever’s affecting her, and Liriel tries to inspect her, passing a finger in front of her eyes, checking for responsiveness – there is none. She suggests trying to get her back to the circus, to see if Damien or Medea could help more. With nothing else that comes to mind, the despairing mother agrees, and they start making their way back to the circus.
They burst in on Damien shooing off the last of the audience – his attention is drawn quickly when he sees Fara holding a child. Liriel: “We found out what’s going on, and it’s terrible!”
[Nisha thinks back through her lore, and realizes what the thing is:
Hollow Fools - fey courtiers banished to the shadowfell. lost so much of itself it hungers for the emotions of others, since it can't make these emotions itself. usually feed on the helpless. and children, since they feel more freely and have brighter emotions. mimic last words of their victims. they leave behind empty shells of their victims who take no action on their own, but are stuck in the fools' lair to serve as a mock court, imitating the fools' former lives.
silenne gave us a rhyme she learned about this thing: 'face of an elf, mind of a beast, dwells in the dark, on hearts it will feast.' ]
