Session 18: Emberil

Eldritch Lilies, Delirium & Reunion
"To see a World in a Grain of Sand//And a Heaven in a Wild Flower//Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand//And Eternity in an hour."

It wasn't supposed to go down like this.

My regal, beautiful, elegant and sophisticated Aunt Lenore. I thought nothing could ever take her down. I suppose it took a giant fey rock charged with energy from another world falling from the heavens and crashing into everything she knew, loved and fought for. The loss of her daughters. The death of her husband. And cursed eldritch flowers is all she has left.

She has lost 15 years. There is almost nothing left of her. Perhaps, perhaps we can still save her. We must find a way.

It was the first time in years, I mean...I felt so close to almost, I...

Gazing upon her face, it cut me deeply. For a flash of a moment, I could see my father looking back at me. Her eyes and proud chin. Really, their eyes. Their proud chin. His likeness. The cadence of her voice. Rahman-Sufi was a great man. The Andromadea name will not go down like this.

The dyrad women, her aides who like my Aunt have morphed because of the long exposure to charged fey magic, they warned me about her temper. Her rage, the lilies shook and pulsed. Only the past words of my own Aunt's private poetry uttered by my mouth, her kin, saved us all from what would have been my ruin. I would have let my Aunt kill me. I would rather kiss death than raise arms against her.

Leaf, one of the handmaidens turned dryad, escorted me out of the room after my Aunt went from 100 to 0, she informed us about the legendary gem--my Aunt's wedding present from her now-deceased husband--from out of the fey wilds itself that the steward was meant to fetch. We must find the gem. Perhaps it can help heal my Aunt or at the very least restore her mind and cut off her inexplicable link to the blasted eldritch lilies.

We must also find the druid who has visited here. The beautiful artifact of Sacena's tree, also from the fey plane, is in one of the corridors with complex druidic magic--some arch-rival of Ivasar's (Sanacar Bryzana and son Galan, writing this down for reference later) are responsible? The offerings in the tree. Everything is curious. So much in the garden. So much under the garden.

The gem. The druidic circle.

I don't have much left in me. Now we're back with the cult, back at Camp Dawn with the "newly christened warriors of the dawn." They don't even know what light is--and I only know the absence of it now. I must convince Lucretia that I am trustworthy.

And then I must crush her, only once I can prove her evil.

The gem. The tree. The druidic runes. The eldritch lilies. Sigrun. My Aunt

... my father.

....