Unknown, various events at the College of the Swan
- Encounters with guests (listed in Unknown entry)
- Trial of Rahadin
Showdown with Cygnus Klief (possibly)
Pillar of green light visual(?)
Previous: Session 082; Next: Session 084
Start: 15th of Venusta, evening, in front of the College of the Swan in Troubridge. Bill's Bimbos are fresh and injured from their fight at the Praeten Oubliett, and are preparing to enter the Unknown.
Entering the party, Bill's Bimbos created/stole some identities to allow them to compete in the first trial:
- Calliope as the Plaguebearer
- Rohtagels as Nesdin
- Nesdin as Dennis
- Dennis as Nesdin
- Arwa Hathspelt as Resnoa Willow
- Aoife Sweeney as Bluebell
Tasked with keeping their covers and discovering someone else's, the party took a number of approaches. Calliope determined that Sir Godrick the Grand was in fact the Kobold-racist bard student Harrison Start. Rohtagels gave up Dennis, Nesdin and Aoife Sweeney found some identities later on, and Arwa Hathspelt turned invisible and followed the group.
Bill's Bimbos, as well as Fictus Aborenzo, Baldwin the Bold and his Bad Batch, Virip, and Viris, and 9 other bard students were allowed to proceed to the next trails. The second trial, the Advanced Charm test, had Mico Piko requesting that participants take the task of charming a charm-resistant creature - an individual the group would learn to be Rahadin, a prisoner captured for trespassing on an excavation site in the northern region of Tanadur. Calliope, Nesdin, and Fictus Aborenzo passed via charm spells, and Aoife Sweeney passed by her effective interrogation technique. Over the course of this test, Rahadin and Rohtagels recognized one another from their past in Rivelish, with Rahadin stating that he wanted to beat up Rohtagels's "dad" (Qwack). Aoife Sweeney also gleaned that Rahadin believed himself to be wrongfully imprisoned, as he had awoken in the ice and was unaware of the excavation, with fleeting last memories of a snowstorm in his home of Rivelish.
Mico Piko, escorted the groups to the third trial: Fighting Words. Participants were asked to hurl insults at one another. Rohtagels made Nesdin cry with one sentence, Calliope utterly destroyed Baldwin the Bold (back to back nat 1's on his saves), and Fictus Aborenzo and Aoife Sweeney won their duels against Virip and Viris.
The victors, Bill's Bimbos and Fictus Aborenzo, were granted their audiences with Cygnus Klief. Fictus Aborenzo went first, and Aoife Sweeney spent more time questioning Rahadin. After a short time, Mico Piko escorted the party up the Aile Blanche Tower to the residence of the headmaster. Here, they spoke with and met Cygnus Klief. He congratulated the party, congratulating them for passing his tests, and thanking them for giving his students the challenge of facing seasoned, accomplished adventurers. He spoke warmly with everyone, praising them each individually. He spoke especially highly of Calliope, his accomplishments and most especially his methods.
Over the course of the conversation, Swansong and Chanrea Mellorius came up. Chanrea Mellorius encouraged Calliope to kill the headmaster while he had the chance, and Cygnus Klief silenced her. He happily addressed the concerns Calliope had as well as filled him in on his accounting of their history: Cygnus Klief founded the school, and Chanrea Mellorius had killed her entire class. He had somewhat encouraged her to do so, but not to such an extreme, and sealed her away in the weapon Swansong. He freely admitted he and Chanrea Mellorius were both Archfey, and that deception and betrayal were in their very natures, though his focused on the bardic ways of misdirection and information-gathering, whilst Chanrea Mellorius represented betrayal and retribution more primarily.
Aoife Sweeney probed into the thoughts of Swansong, and found Chanrea Mellorius repeating a different message: Cygnus Klief was dangerous and a practiced liar, he had sealed her away in Swansong and does the same to his most accomplished pupils, warning Calliope may suffer the same fate should he trust him. At the same time, Cygnus Klief further ingratiated himself with Calliope and the party, offering an incapacitate Fictus Aborenzo should Calliope desire an easy and swift retribution to the bard peer, pulling him from his own shadow and depositing him back when Calliope declined for the moment.
As evening turned to night, the moonlight of the twin full moons, Astraan and Orchuun, filled the tower, and far off to the northwest, the party caught a pillar of green light shining beyond the horizon (presumably Earthsplitter).
End: 15th of Duratus, night of the Unknown, at the top of the Aile Blanch Tower in the College of the Swan, speaking with Cygnus Klief. Calliope is torn between trusting the stories of Cygnus Klief and Chanrea Mellorius, and the green pillar of light from Earthsplitter is visible in the distance to the northwest.