(En route from C. Bane of the Kraken to D. Rolling in the Deep)
(Following the story of The Haunting of Montarthas Manor and Saint Greycastle Hospital and building on The Haunt 3).
Crossroads of Fate
An insistent guide joins the Scaly Eye as the party sets out from Candlekeep, having returned the restored magical book in the islands of Chult. The guide, who seems to have known Alorrik from his prior guise Iarno Albrek, calls herself simply "She Who Sees" and promises crucial assistance in planning the Dragon Rescue of Lhammaruntosz. She is given passage and an agreement to aid her on what is promised to be a "short quest" of her own, which she claims to be foreseen long ago in her meeting the group at this time and place - a Crossroads of Fate.
The rolling of the waves alongside the ship become uniform, perfectly shaped, synchronized - leaving swirling eddies of perfect circles all winding counter-clockwise. As if the world itself were a machine, all around such synchronicities align - the movement and patter of the sailors, flight of seabirds, symmetry of the clouds. The words of She Who Sees begin to clip like the ticking of the clock towers of the large cities.
Members of the party began to sense the weave of their own fate through these hypnotic effects - until their minds and senses and souls reach back to earlier versions of themselves. The surroundings shift from the ship's deck to a gloomy forest. Beneath tall trees, weeds and moss have overtaken an ancient graveyard.
Macabre Meeting
Oogway recalls lore of awakening spirits in such a place by walking widdershins (counter-clockwise) around it with the mind open to contact. On the third circuit around, a low hum came to their ears while the color began to drain from the surroundings, turning all to a sickly gray. The hum grew louder until it spun and condensed into a small glowing form of a weeping child.
The phantom girl manifesting before the group is recognized as the daughter of General Montarthas, Carol Anne, whose dark soul inhabited the Evil Doll that lurked within the ruins of Montarthas Manor, when last Our Party explored, were trapped within - and escaped. This form of her shimmers between flesh-child and doll - her dual forms. "I am glad you came," she states, and as she continued to speak, the humming resumed, consuming the world around - spinning and spinning until the shape of that familiar house, in ruin but before its collapse looms ahead.
In this form of my death, I discovered a trick to stand outside of time, searching for some way to unwind the evil done to myself and my family. To make this change, I require your help - reaching through your connections - to form anchors to that past against which I may pull and pivot events otherwise. One anchor must be formed for each year of my brief life - six in total. Should we fail to gain these, we may all be lost in time.
You have each been tied to a mystic hourglass as a ward to protect you in these quests. But only once may it be employed.
She described a list of possible anchors, which might be revealed leveraging past experiences at the haunted manor. In the end, discoveries of the anchors found follow - while those left aside include: My Sketchbook, My Weeping Heart, and Ilmater's Tears.
With her list of requests in mind, the group - high-elf paladin, human (or giant dwarf) barbarian, half-elf ranger (with wolf companion), and humanoid turtle warlock stepped into the cursed building's dark entryway.
Anchors in Time
Wings for my Escape: to cross the mansion's foyer, once more the party engaged two gargoyles in combat. The four-armed creatures of stone ferociously pummeled the hardier members - severely reducing the heartiness of both the armored paladin Belcoria and the durable barbarian Tallon the Tall. While several Divine Smites from the paladin and relentless rage-driven blows by the barbarian beat back the foes, it is the heavy strikes by the Shillelagh quarterstaff of the ranger Willow that collapses the forms into dust - sparing only a single stone wing of each. Upon holding each wing, the stone forms disappeared and a ghostly voice echoed the words "Thank you!".
Lock of Mother's Hair: recalling the woman bled to death in the tub of the upstairs washroom, the group makes straight for this up the spiral staircase. Finding the scene as before, the woman's head snaps to peer at the intruders, then her arms projected out like harpoons, spearing Belcoria and Oogway in the process before she is brought down, allowing her hair to be clipped and vanish with the "Thank you" that then followed each.
Book of Bedtime Stories: more
My Faces (Both of Them): more
Feed my Hunger: more
My Brother's Body: more
Hourglass Moments
Three of the four party members were forced to employ their hourglass gifts to survive the encounters. Only Willow had not fallen or called forth her power, a lingering effect to be discovered another time.
Tallon the Tall: (Left to guard the entrance/exit, Tallon fell to an assault by the Evil Doll, the hourglass tethering him to remain). The Stormborn barbarian, apt in craftsmanship and thus ever on the counter-balance of the Storm Lord Talos' destructive nature at the head of the Gods of Fury envisioned the gods' well-known three-bolt symbol, reaching to take one of the bolts in hand - the other two lining up in parallel, forming a pair resembling "SS".
Oogway: (Nearly fallen in battle with the Evil Doll while the party was split). The Tortle perceived a splinter in the multiverse, peering through a hole pierced into and connecting with a time and place of great buildings of iron and glass and glowing lights - from which the greatest sensation he had ever known offered a gift: a mouthful of a food whose flavor was beyond delight to his tastes, reawakening with a word naming this, "Pizza!"
Belcoria: (Our armored knight was relentlessly abused in combat after combat, restored through all forms of healing, laying of hands, and potions, yet was still brought into near-death not once but twice - the most severe in taking on a huge-sized Mimic, disguised as bookshelves.) Revisiting the history of the Aeldyr, their reaching to escape their sun's death but accidentally opening a portal to a plane of the Abyss - and a different end to their civilization. Drawing back from this, she sensed her own release from death likewise released a dark power from its own demise.
Conclusion
Upon acquiring the final anchor in the maternity ward, the shadow-past world melted away, swirling and swirling until the four awakened once more aboard the Scaly Eye, lying unconscious on the deck as the vessel sailed smoothly across calm seas. It is only then that She Who Sees reveals herself to be the grown-to-adult Carol Anne Montarthas, perhaps two thousand years old now - explaining time's aging seems to have become repelled by the events of her histories. Having existed in forms outside of time, she is now a powerful wielder of Divination magic.
She assures the heroes her Sight will prove a potent tool in the mission to come in the cold depths where the northernmost reach of the Sea of Swords meets the Trackless Sea, almost to the Sea of Moving Ice.
(Next: return to D. Rolling in the Deep in pursuit of Storm Lord's Hideout)