“Let’s Split Up!”

The heroes split up, half of them helping put out the fires in the village below, and the other half  equivocating on whether to hand over the relic of Saint Amanda Please to Auntie Stitchmouth. While Sora interrogates the Abbot further, Mallory chats with Saint Amanda Please herself and learns the following:

The heroes would not be negatively affected if they gave Auntie Stitchmouth the hand.

The island would be.

Gotta Hand it to Her

They go to the witch’s hut the next day, escorted by Chester, and meet Stitchmouth and Melody for tea. After some questioning back and forth, asking about the macabre symbols that led them to the horn of Kes, asking about the Saint’s words, Livius is satisfied enough to hand over the relic.

But when the witch asks Melody to test its power to blind, the heroes stop the girl and a heated discussion begins, Stitchmouth imploring that it has to be a human and that she can restore the girl’s sight once it is over. Unsatisfied with this explanation, Casimir mage-hands the relic at the witch, blinding her.

As the heroes try to mitigate the damage, with Livius trying unsuccessfully to remove the curse, a band of trolls appears outside, their origins unknown. Malory paralyzes the hag in place, trying to buy time, but when the sounds of battle outside begin, Nahk, unsure of what to do, does what he does best, and attacks the old woman, all while her wards watch. Hobbes joins the attack, and the Wildboyz murder Stitchmouth as the children try in vain to stop them.

The heroes dispose of the trolls outside, with Livius hunting one of them down with extreme prejudice. Mallory retrieves the relic as the children weep and scream at him. Sora tries to console them with the hope of bringing her back to life on Lemba. They do not respond, but when the heroes return, the children and body are gone.

The heroes loot 30 sirablood doses from the hag, the promised payment for disposing of the false angel Bakshir who was posing as Kes. They return the relic and horn to the temple.

For killing the hag, the [[ Kodama ]] appear again, giving the heroes a cross charm to aid them on the next island the Kodama wish them to go to.

A jaunty summer look

The heroes return to Lemba, their ship one day away from being upgraded. The Fairy Princess Roswyn is pleased to nearly be done with the exchange of one turn for another (restoring the Archdruid’s Grove for upgrading the ship). 

The Alchemist meets the gang on the beach, having traded in her witch hat for a straw hat and pretending to drink a fun cocktail like the other crew members. She accepts the new book with excitement, looking forward to learning about the demiplane engine that is keeping the islands here and hopefully finding a way to unlock it. As the heroes progress through the demiplane of the Haunted Sea, developing their understanding in collaboration with their strange, mysterious, but affable friend the Alchemist, they grow more powerful.

Third Wheels, in Our Feels

Abraham and Baltsaros go on a date that could change everything. Baltsaros expresses his fear for the place that they’re in, and tells Abraham that he wishes they could just stay on Lemba forever.

Torn in multiple directions (his desire for revenge on Hespero for deceiving him for months, murdering his master, and enslaving his husband; his wish to do good, help people, and eradicate evil; his desire to destroy the Deathless One; his knowledge that no island of the 13 islands is safe due to the rampant cloud giant raids and evil things everywhere; and his love for Baltsaros), Abraham decides to sleep on it, while Sora awkwardly watches on while invisible after serenading them a la Little Mermaid.

More like Unfair Folk

Meanwhile, Livius, Nahk, and Hobbes have a rip-roaring good time with the fair folk. The drinking is hard, the food is intoxicating, and the dancing exhilarating. Though as fun as it is, the three companions realize how close they were to losing Hobbes in the wild dance of the fey. Had Livius and Nahk not pulled him out when they did, Hobbes would have danced until his legs were bloody stumps.

Nahk wrote up a few lessons he learned from his night, most notably, don’t dance without a non-fairy chaperone ready to pull you out, don’t eat the food, don’t drink the drink, and know when to leave. The three of them wake up with splitting headaches, completely naked, in the bushes on the outskirts of the clearing. When they open their eyes to the eternal twilight of Lemba’s dawn, they see the revelers still partying, drinking, and dancing; and they see that they have dicks drawn on their faces. They fall back asleep.

Diet of Worms

Mallory gazed into the void and it gazed back. As he studied his tome by candlelight, images of worms appeared to him, white and writhing and alien. Spilling a bit of sirablood on the page made the passages move around in the book. As he tried to focus his mind, he lost several hours and awoke to find his candle nearly burnt out, as a single word came to him, spoken not by a mouth but by the gnashing of wriggling worms, the name of an island:

Embara

The morning of day 14 in the Haunted Seas

17 (!) days to Zulon’s arrival

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