We played this game at ATW Con 2026, Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday morning. Nick couldn't make the con, and Dan played Nick's character Melek.
Before the players all assembled, James and I talked a little, and James thought aloud.
Beale's bastion librarian Penelope produced another batch of research about Ishild before the game, and James read it. Based on Penelope's research, James said that the Hollin Grimoire - Ishild's lair - had a summoning pit, and to summon something you need its name and Greencake. So obviously Ishild was going to summon something, but what and why? I suggested that Ishild and Beale were on good terms, with Ishild sometimes calling Beale "my good Beale," so Beale could just ask Ishild. James responded, "I’m sure that would be fine. What could possibly happen there?"
James also had some thoughts on the Lay of Ishild, which Beale was writing for Ishild. My (possibly partial) notes:
The Lay of Ishild will always be incomplete because Beale will never know everything. He might liken it to two sides of a coin, the two facets of Ishild. He was a very intelligent mathematician, but he’s torturing people. That would be the theme. Also the two sides of nature, good and evil, beauty and ugliness. With the gods themselves, benevolent or wrathful. Ishild encompasses all these things, therefore he is all powerful. But the Lay is intended not to provoke his fury or pretend that he's not awful in some ways. Beale could also work in something about the summoning - Ishild the Summoner.
When the others assembled, Tracy asked for a refresher on the Pneuma spell scrolls they'd found in Voorman's shop, and I said they "used fire and air to give life and breath to inanimate objects."
I told the players that they could do some different skill checks to know about Greencake, and Beale started with an Arcana check. He rolled between 15 and 25, and learned:
Arcana check
DC 15: Greencake is a rare material spell component. It’s usually used for summoning, but some other magic also uses it.
James now read Penelope's research to the other players and speculated. Again, my (possibly partial) notes:
Ishild's a god of the Caliphate, "the Hidden." Ord Redding served him and Ishild sent Ord back to the Caliphate to reinstall the Malik, the Caliphate's rightful ruler. Ord, Beowolf, and Kasskar did reinstate him and Ord became the Caliphate's Champion.
The tenth basement of the Grimioire is for summoning. Any spirit can be summoned to the pit in the bottom level given its name and sufficient Greencake. So maybe he wants the True Name to summon Ajana, I don't know. The ten basement library mostly describes spirits from other planes and how to summon them to the Grimoire.
The tenth basement where Ishild is has four staircases, but Penelope hasn't found where the southwest stair leads.
Putting it together: he is definitely trying to summon something, maybe that’s why all the riddles. Possibly summon a god.
Tora did a Religion roll with Wolfgang's help, to know more about Ajana. They learned:
Speaking the True Name of Ajana gives the speaker power over Ajana's creation.
This spurred a little more discussion about why Ishild wanted the True Name of Ajana, and what really motivated Ishild - more power? Power over Ajana?
We returned to the skill checks to know about Greencake. Marina rolled a Nature check with Beale's Help, and she rolled a 22.
Nature check
DC 15: Greencake is a green salt that occurs as an impurity in normal white salt (NaCl).
DC 20: Greencake is extracted from white salt using a normal chemical process, fractional crystallization: "By heating a mixture of both [salts] in water and then cooling it down, the [Greencake] will rapidly crystallize out of the solution as it cools, while the [normal white salt] stays completely dissolved, allowing for a clean separation." (Google Gemini’s summary.) This produces normal white salt as a waste product.
Henele asked a question about Greencake, which we refined a couple of times to: "Is the Greencake extracted by fractional crystallization actually created by magic?" I said no, it was actually present in the white salt, and extracted by a normal non-magical process. I believe there was also a little discussion of whether the Greencake and/or white waste salt could be processed again to get more Greencake. In the case of the white waste salt, I said the fractional crystallization might leave a negligible amount of Greencake in the waste salt that could still be extracted.
Beale also rolled a History check to know about Greencake, and I believe he rolled between 10 and 15.
History check
DC 10: Greencake is mined on the arctic wasteland, Hilde.
We talked a little about Hilde. I showed them the Balaal world map, which shows the northern hemisphere, with the north pole and Hilde at the center.
We finished Game 3 in Barber Hall's crypt, where the party had fought and killed Ishild's Caliphate assassins. They'd saved some barbers in the fight, including the young Drew Hill.
We briefly recapped the fight: some older barbers and even Brock royal ghosts had fought to protect Drew. And of course Hill was also the name of Brand Hill, the Brock royal heir who never ruled. Marina said that the barbers must know about Drew's heritage.
They now searched the assassins' bodies. They'd discovered earlier in Barber Hall that the guild's member roll had been stolen, and now they found it on one of the assassins. They took it, presumably depriving the assassins of their hit list.
They asked Drew why he was so important, but Drew was surprised by the question, saying he wasn't important. Drew said he was the guild's most junior member, and he had to bring the others their drinks and wash their dishes. Drew said that he did outrank the guildhound, but he still had to clean up after it.
The party took the older barbers aside and questioned one of them, who Tracy named George. George didn't want to give them any information, but Hughe and Melek did a good cop, bad cop routine on them, one using their Intimidation to roll while the other used their Persuasion to Help.
They rolled a 25, and George hesitantly told them that Drew was a Brock heir and didn't know it. He said that Barber Hall and some of Hollin's other guilds had royal charters from before the Company. They took their royal charters seriously, and secretly recruited young Brock heirs as members to protect them.
Wolfgang asked George if there was a path to restoring Hollin's royalty, but George was hesitant to say any more. Henele rolled a Persuasion (I think), but rolled a 1, and I gave Henele a red "REJECTED" sticker. Henele used his inspiration point to roll again, with his own Guidance, rolling a 21. George told him that Millicent the Rat Queen was first in line to the Brock/Gradskan throne, and was slowly building power in secret.
Marina went back to Drew. She said he looked familiar and asked who his father was. Drew said that his father was Klaus the Dicke (the Fat), Millicent's son.
They looked at the guild member roll and saw Matilda Clippenstein, George, and a few Hills on it. They discussed what to do with it, and Wolfgang suggested burning it. George said the assassins had killed the guild's registrar and taken the roll from him. He suggested giving it to the new registrar, who would maybe put it in a safe deposit box at the bank, Garlington, Helmine, and Gibb. But, my notes don't say what they actually decided to do with it.
They asked George for a reward for saving Drew and the others. George said that besides being the barber guild, Barber Hall also represented Hollin's surgeons. He gave them a Potion of Superior Healing from the surgeons, worth 1,000 gp.
George now asked them who would want to attack barbers. Beale said (again my notes):
Good question, it’s complicated. Suffice it to say, there are some crazy people out there and there was a psychotic behind this who just had it in for barbers. I wish it was more interesting than that. We’re working on behalf of the Admiralty, as investigators for hire. We usually work on their behalf. So we knew that the barbers were in trouble, but we didn’t know the extent of the plot.
Wolfgang also suggested that Hollin's barbers all go into hiding.
They discussed what to do next. They discussed how they didn't have the Greencake that Ishild wanted, and wouldn't want to give it to him if they did. They said that left them with checking on Matilda Clippenstein, checking in with Penelope, or going back to the black horse in Glendower Square. However, they were just coming off of their fight with the Ishild's assassins, and decided to take a long rest before anything else.
Rosy went to her apartment for her long rest, and the others all went to Beale's Mooncalf apartment for theirs.
As they were waking in the morning, there was a knock at Beale's door. It was Kasskar, who looked hungover from his previous opium adventures, but sober. Kasskar offered to give them more sober information than he had in the Mooncalf opium den.
Beale asked Kasskar where they could find Greencake in Hollin. Kasskar said that the Hollin Grimoire was where Greencake was actually used in Hollin, so that would be the natural place to look.
Beale said that Ishild had been harassing them, putting them into "maniacal" situations. The Grimoire was Ishild's lair now, but he still wanted 20M gold pieces worth of Greencake, so presumably the Grimoire didn't have that much. Kasskar agreed, saying there probably wasn't 20M gold pieces worth of normal Greencake in the world, and I reminded the players that Ishild had actually asked for "doubly refined" Greencake.
Kasskar told them that the Greencake motherlode was the Blackwells' Hargraves mine on Hilde, but the Blackwells shut the mine down about forty years ago and never reopened it. He suggested asking Ishild, Captain Burns, or Beowolf about it.
Marina asked how they could take the Ishild down. Kasskar said the fairy assassination spell Word Without Warning would kill "anything," and Beale replied that he had actually given Ishild Word Without Warning in the Far Shore (!). Marina said that maybe Ishild wanted Word Without Warning to use on Ajana.
Beale asked Kasskar what motivated Ishild, and Kasskar thought that Ishild was mostly interested in mathematics.
The party discussed their predicament. My notes:
Marina: He’s trying to make the world adhere to his rules, or he wouldn’t be slaughtering barbers because of this stupid thing.
Beale: He’ll try to solve his problem at any cost.
Marina: Yes, but he’s also a god who wants to solve these problems at any cost. Make it conform, stop violating these paradoxes. If he had control over creation...I don’t know.
Wolfgang: Can he make his own little mathematically consistent world? With Guidance and a lot of luck.
Beale (to Kasskar): One last question: with your experience with Ishild, if we just didn’t do these things, what do you think his response would be?
Kasskar: On some level Ishild's pretty reasonable: we killed him twice and then he came back to us and said, "Hey, can you do this other thing for me?" [Referring to Ord and the party restoring the Caliphate Malik to power.]
Marina asked how Kasskar killed Ishild before, and Kasskar said his party just killed Ishild with their normal attacks. When he reappeared at his phylactery four days later, at the Winter Wolf weapon shop, Beowolf killed him, again with his normal attacks. However, Kasskar believed that Ishild's strength had grown since then. And, it was pointless killing Ishild if you didn't also destroy the phylactery.
The party thanked Kasskar and he left.
There was another knock at Beale's door. It was Annie from the Quaternion Society. Annie reintroduced herself, saying they'd met in the Mooncalf, when she was having soup with Manfred Unger.
Annie said that while Manfred was missing, she'd used his new math to find a captivating result: some true statements can never be proven true. When Manfred came back, she shared this result with him, and he was surprised by it. Annie said that long before the Quaternion Society, Hollin had another mathematicians' guild, the Steam Reasoning Guild. Manfred went to the Steam Reasoning Guild's abandoned hall to see if their old journals could shed any light on Annie's result, but he never came back. That was two days ago.
Beale said that they had encountered a similar concept recently, the True Name of Ajana, but Annie had never heard of it. Beale said that religion is based on faith, accepting truths without proof. That didn't register with Annie though, and she just stared back at Beale blankly.
Wolfgang asked Annie, "How do you determine if a true statement can't be proven true?" Annie said that was impossible, because part of determining that a statement is true but can't be proven true is the first part, determining that it's true. But that itself would be a "proof."
They asked Annie why the Steam Reasoning Guild shut down, but Annie didn't know.
Beale left a note for Penelope, asking her to check up on Matilda, and they left for the old Steam Reasoning Hall with Annie.
The party left the Mooncalf for the abandoned Stream Reasoning Hall, which was kitty-corner from the Admiralty building in the Shipyards. They went east on Quay, then took a left onto Ballard. After walking a few blocks north on Ballard, past a long series of store fronts:
Five or six doors down, a man comes out of a store, turns left in your direction, and starts to stride down the sidewalk.
He catches your attention immediately. He has a striking Van Dyke beard, but otherwise he’s a mess. He’s dressed in overly colorful clothes that look brand new, right off the rack, and they fit poorly. He has a felt top hat, a long coat, and boots, and he doesn’t seem comfortable with any of them. To quote Nikki Glaser, he’s dressed like a 9-year-old who found $5,000 on the sidewalk.
Just as you pass him, the man stops and says politely, “Excuse me kind people. I just arrived in Hollin and I wonder if I could ask you a little about your fair city." He pulls out a little notebook and pencil.
The stranger said to Melek, "Sir, first, may I ask your name?" Melek introduced himself, and the stranger said that "Melek" was a wonderful name, and wrote it down in his notebook. Melek asked the stranger what his name was, and the stranger also said his name was Melek. They asked him who he was, and he said he was an investigator. I believe they asked who he worked for, but he said he was required to keep his client's information private.
Beale introduced himself as "Beale, an entertainer," and asked the stranger where he got his clothes. The stranger told Beale he got them at the shop just up the street, adding, "I exchanged coin for goods and services, including these clothes."
The stranger asked Melek, "Mr. Melek, if my business keeps me in Hollin overnight, what would you recommend?" Melek suggested the Mooncalf, and Marina suggested he “stay away from the sausage.” The party suggested he might catch the Black Cabaret at the Mooncalf, and Beale said he sometimes performed there. The stranger thanked them for their suggestions and wrote them all down.
The stranger turned to Marina, and asked, "Miss, may I ask your name?" Marina introduced herself and Boom. The stranger said, "Marina Gale. That's a beautiful name. It's like a sonnet in a few syllables, like a summer's day." Marina thanked him, and he asked her, "Miss Marina Gale, if I want to find a girl in Hollin, a bad girl, what should I do?"
I believe the party suggested he could find a "bad girl" at the Mooncalf, or maybe a Black Cabaret dancer might be a bad girl. Beale asked for a clarification though - did he mean a "bad girl" like a criminal? The stranger said, "Yes, exactly."
He asked Wolfgang, "Sir, may I ask your name?" Wolfgang introduced himself, and the stranger wrote down "Wolfgang Ignoti" in his notebook. The stranger asked, "Mr. Wolfgang Ignoti, what happens to you when you die?"
Wolfgang said, "Which part of me?" This confused the stranger a little, but he tried again, saying, "I think I meant to ask, what happens to you when you die in Hollin?" Marina suggested you would go to the morgue.
The stranger looked down at his feet, thinking hard for several seconds. He looked up at Wolfgang and said, "Mr. Wolfgang Ignoti, you are Hollin's property tax collector?" Wolfgang said "I'm pretty sure I'm not." The stranger said, "You're very kind though. Would you tell me the Hollin property tax collector's name?" Wolfgang said though that he didn't know it.
The stranger thought through what he'd been told. "I see. The Hollin property tax collector has a wonderful name, but not everyone in Hollin knows everyone else's name...because Hollin is such a big city. I guess the Hollin property tax collector would know everyone's name though, be they good or bad."
Marina decided to try Mind Feed on the stranger, not to attack him, but to get advantage on Insight with him. The stranger failed his Wisdom save, and Marina rolled Insight with Advantage. Marina failed her first roll, even with Advantage, and used her inspiration point to roll again, succeeding. She determined that he was answering their questions to the best of his ability.
Marina rolled 17 Persuasion, saying to him: "Please tell us what you're investigating so we might help you." The stranger told Marina, "I'm looking for a bad girl in Hollin." Beale asked, "Are you looking for a particular girl?" The stranger said yes. Beale asked, "Do you know her name or her crime?" The stranger said no.
Beale suggested that if he was looking for a bad girl, maybe a women's prison would be the place to look. I said I didn't know that there was specifically a women's prison in Hollin, but Hollin had several general prisons, and the party gave him their names.
They discussed who the stranger might be, with James suggesting he might be an automaton. Wolfgang shook the stranger's hand, asking if it felt strange, but I said the stranger's hand felt like a human hand.
I believe Beale did Detect Thoughts on the stranger, and tried to learn who he worked for, but learned that the stranger's employer didn't have a name.
Beale said the party were also investigators, and the stranger could find them at the Mooncalf. He thanked them, and they went their separate ways.
Melek had his familiar Grave follow the stranger at a discrete distance to see where he went. The stranger walked the streets of the Shipyards and then Braddock, occasionally stopping people to ask their names, or asking if they knew "morgue."
The party went up to the shop that the stranger had come out of. They asked the shopkeeper what the stranger had bought, and the shopkeeper said the clothes they saw him in. The stranger had left his old clothes there, and they asked to see them; they were some crude overalls. They asked what the stranger paid with, and the shopkeeper showed them a peculiar gold coin, which had ridges on the edge, but was blank on both sides.
The party continued up Ballard to the old Stream Reasoning Hall, at Ballard and Weaver. It had doors on Ballard and a larger set of receiving doors on Weaver, and they went in the Ballard doors.
Inside they found a giant steam engine: a coal furnace with a steel boiler on the top for making steam, which fed a piston that drove a giant flywheel, 65 feet in diameter. The flywheel's axle had a leather band on it, which went down through the floor and presumably drove something below. There was a stair going down at the far west.
They also found several skeletons. Marina did a Medicine check on them and found they had been "cut down." They found a few sets of footprints in the dust on the floor, leading from the Ballard entrance to the stairs.
They went down to the first basement, which was filled with mechanical reasoning engines resembling one of Charles Babbage's machines, powered by the leather band coming down from the first floor. There were again a few skeletons.
The footprints in the dust continued down to a second basement, and they went down. Here they found the Stream Reasoning Guild's library and journals. Marina rolled Perception, rolling a 26, and was able to read the footprints and signs Aragorn-style: "A logician was here...he read the journals...three men attacked him."
TODO(dennis): the journals that are open are about truths that can't be proven true.
Beale found a little scrap of clothing with a holy symbol on it. James rolled INT for Beale to recognize the symbol, but rolled poorly. Tora rolled Religion with Wolfgang's help, a 24. She knew that the holy symbol was the symbol of the brothers at the Chapel of Ajana in Dunham, which Beale actually knew from the Far Shore.
They went back up to the ground floor. As they came up the stair, three men entered the hall, and one said to the others, "Kill them all, but kill Annie first."
It was late, and we decided to wrap up for Friday night and continue the next day, but the players discussed their situation a little before finishing. They discussed how to kill Ishild, and I reminded them that Kasskar had suggested Word Without Warning, and that Ishild had it. Henele suggested that instead of killing Ishild, they could take Ishild to a "another plane of existence that’s more perfect."
We resumed Saturday night.
The three men attacked, but the party defeated them. TODO(strelow): expand description here.
TODO(dennis): send Henele some ability that he learned from the brothers.
They asked Annie why the brothers would attack them, but Annie didn't know. Marina suggested that the brothers were offended by their investigation, and that they go to the brother's Chapel of Ajana, and Beale thought the brothers might have Manfred captive there.
They decided to go to Chapel of Ajana, but decided to take a long rest at Beale's apartment at the Mooncalf first.
But leaving the Mooncalf after their rest, passing through the bar:
You see your old friend Burgess Banks wander in, seemingly in a daze. As he walks in, you hear bells jingling. Burgess walks up to the bar and puts his hand on it, but then just stands there without ordering anything, looking around.
They asked Burgess if he was OK. Beale distracted him while Wolfgang took the bells off, but Burgess was still dazed with the bells off.
They asked Burgess what he remembered. Burgess said that he had led the Braddock night watch Tuesday night. (It was Thursday morning now.) He remembered walking home before dusk that night, but didn't remember getting home. They asked if he knew the peculiar stranger they'd met on Ballard Street, but he didn't know him.
They examined the bells. They didn't have any special symbols, and seemed mass produced. They asked if the bells were the same as Matilda's bells, and I said they weren't exactly the same, but about the same thing, the same class of bell.
They turned to a drunk at the bar, Rackham. They asked him to put the bells on, which he did, but they didn't notice any effect on Rackham beyond his inebriation. They asked him to take them off and he took them off without any difficulty.
They asked if Burgess looked "unkempt." I said yes, he looked like he hadn't groomed or washed in a couple days. But he didn't have a long beard or anything - he wasn't as unkempt as some Hollinders whose barbers had been killed. They asked Burgess who his barber was, and he said Planck, in Dunham.
They politely excused themselves from Burgess, but talked a little among themselves. They discussed how many people made bells in Hollin and where. Beale suggested the bells are maybe a one-use magic item. They decided to find a shop that sells bells, but decided to look for Manfred at the Chapel of Ajana first.
We decided to break for Saturday night. Before wrapping though, the players again discussed their situation a little. Tracy said they had reason to believe that Ishild was trying to capture Ajana or kill Ajana. She said they could go back to trying to kill him, and James replied, "Honestly, Ishild is too much fun to have around."
We reassembled Sunday morning, and Amy (Rosy Claster) and Kristal (Tora Loudpass) joined the game. With Amy here, we backtracked a little to describe Rosy's long rest. I said when Rosy went to her apartment for the rest:
When Rosy comes into her apartment, she finds 5 people dead on the floor. Jimmy is not there.
"Jimmy" was Rosy's uncle Jimmy Claster, who the party had rescued from Hobnail Prison in the Master of Revels, and who had been recuperating at Rosy's. Although alarming, the information wasn't immediately actionable. Rosy cleaned up the bodies though, with Amy saying Rosy would "bring them over to the oven" to dispose of them.
I also asked Amy to clarify a few things about Rosy. I asked where Rosy actually lived, and Amy said near the bakery where Rosy worked, in Braddock. I said there was known to be a community oven near the boundary between Braddock and the City of the Dead - might Rosy's bakery be near there? Amy said yes, it could be.
I said that Amy/Rosy always seemed to refer to her parents in the past tense. Were they dead? Amy said no: her father was retired, so no longer police chief, and her mother was enjoying her old age. Amy said Rosy had two brothers too, but they were "away."
TODO(dennis): send Amy stats on Bullington Brock mace
I suggested the party get some healing potions appropriate for sixth level. They went to Chambers the Apothecary, and Chambers gave them each two Potions of Greater Healing on the house, which heal 4d4+4. We don't really track gold in our games, so in return, Chambers just asked that they bring him any mugwort or crabapple that they found on their travels. They asked what mugwort and crabapple looked like, and he showed them naturalist chalk drawings of them.
I also reminded them that Chambers was always looking for love-in-idleness and wormwood. Chambers said he had a Potion of Superior Healing that he'd sell them for 1,000 gp, or trade for love-in-idleness.
They asked Chambers about Greencake, but he had never heard of it. They asked if he'd seen anyone confused, missing time, or wearing bells, but he hadn't.
Marina asked Chambers if bells had any medical use. Chambers rolled Medicine, a 16. He said that Meade Hospital Morgue was a waiting morgue, and they put bells on bodies' wrists and ankles, so they would hear if "dead" people are actually still alive. Marina got inspiration for asking. They immediately connected this to the stranger they'd met on Ballard Street - he suddenly made sense to them.
They revisited the black horse and carriage they'd visited in Game 3, in Glendower Square next to the Mooncalf.
They found some children in the square who knew about the horse. Wolfgang told them, "I'm a travelling sorcerer and I've heard you're the local experts." One boy stepped up and said confidently, "I am the local expert on this horse."
The boy said the horse could count, and they asked him to show them. He told the horse, "1 2 3 4," and the horse winnied once and stomped twice. He told the horse, "1 3 3 4,” and the horse stomped twice.
That seemed to be about as much as the boy knew. They tried a few examples of their own:
But, the horse didn't respond to any of these. When they did sequences of four numbers though, they did get some responses:
They tried a lot more combinations, and they got different numbers of winnies and stomps, sometimes reaching three of each. It seemed that only sequences of four numbers mattered, only numbers between 1 and 4 mattered, and the order of the numbers mattered. The boy confirmed that it only responded to sequences of four numbers. They asked the boy what sequence caused the most responses, but he said it varied from day to day.
They examined the carriage for markings, but didn't find any. It had no window, and the carriage door didn't have any handle. They speculated that the door would open automatically when they gave the right sequence. They asked if the horse was spectral, or if it could talk, but no, it seemed to be a normal horse.
There are 24 permutations of 1, 2, 3, and 4, and they tried all 24, but none caused the carriage door to open. The players asked me a couple of questions about the 24 answers, but they were questions I couldn't answer without a computer program.
They remembered that Kasskar had taken the horse and carriage to Kairos before, but they decided to get the phylactery before asking Kasskar.
Regarding the phylactery, Tracy said something that implied the phylactery was in Kairos, but we clarified that Kairos was where the phylactery could be destroyed, not where it was.
They went to the Chapel of Ajana in Dunham, hoping to find Manfred Unger.
On the ground floor, in the pews, a few people were enjoying some peace and contemplation. They didn't see any gentlemen with canes or bowler hats though, and they went down to the first basement.
This first basement was a shared living area. There were a few long dining tables with chairs and benches. Some small cells had bedrolls and clothes hanging on pegs. These were similar to the clothes their attackers had worn, and they saw the same holy symbol their attackers had worn on a tunic.
There was no one there though, and they went down again to a second basement.
The second basement was the chapel's crypt. There were several caskets above ground, some with reliquary statues reclined on them, and some ledger stones in the floor. The chapel's keeper Merrick, who Beale had helped in the Far Shore, came out of a side room where he had been cleaning.
Merrick welcomed Beale and said he was happy to see him again, but the party was immediately suspicious of him. Wolfgang rolled Insight, rolled poorly, and used an inspiration point to roll again, succeeding. Wolfgang felt that Merrick was nervous and hiding something. Henele asked me why Merrick was nervous - was he hiding something or was he afraid? He rolled Insight again, successfully, and noticed that Merrick repeatedly looked over at one of the ledger plates in the floor. They noticed that this ledger plate didn't have a name and dates on it, but had the same holy symbol on it that they'd seen on their attackers.
Amy rolled Persuasion on Merrick to get him to talk, and rolled 21, but even the 21 wasn't enough to make Merrick talk. Beale cast Detect Thoughts on Merrick and discovered that Merrick was afraid Beale would discover something. Beale did the deeper push of Detect Thoughts and Merrick rolled a 1 on his save. Beale found that Merrick was alarmed and afraid that James was going to pull up the ledger stone; that Merrick was hoping his Brothers would come to stop Beale; and that he was sad it had come to this with his old friend Beale.
They grappled Merrick, while Merrick objected that the crypt was not a public area of the chapel and that they had to leave. They tied Merrick up in the corner and put a gag on him, and Merrick sat in the corner crying.
They pulled up the ledger stone and found a crudely carved stair going down to a cavern.
Three angelic figures were there - a male standing in the front closer to them, and two females standing further back, by two doors. The male said:
Welcome, I am Marad. This is Naru and this is Kalla.
They told Marad they were looking for Manfred Unger, but Marad said that he didn't know any Manfred Unger. Instead he said he guarded the True Name of Ajana. He said:
One of these doors leads to the True Name of Ajana. The doors are guarded by Naru and Kalla. One always lies and one always tells the truth. You can ask Naru or Kalla just one question to decide which door leads to the True Name.
The other door leads to eternal damnation.
Rosy said she didn't believe him, but Marak didn't respond. They discussed whether they even wanted the True Name, and I argued that (they now knew that) the True Name gives power over Ajana's creation. Tracy wasn't sure they wanted power over Ajana's creation though.
They asked if Marad had seen anyone recently, and Marad said no one had visited the cavern in a few hundred years. They asked which door that previous person had chosen, and Marak just said, "They chose poorly," and that the right and wrong doors reset randomly before each attempt.
The party now noticed that the seven strange women had appeared in the cavern, to their right, watching. They acknowledged the women with a couple of bitter comments or questions, but proceeded with the riddle. Beale used his solution to the riddle, asking Kalla, "If I were to ask the other guard, which door leads to the eternal truth of Ajana, what would she say?" Kalla said, "Nafu would say that her door leads to the True Name."
Beale correctly chose Kalla's door. Behind it he found a small room with a spell scroll, the True Name of Ajana:
The True Name of Ajana spell scroll
The True Name of Ajana is all true statements that can’t be proven true.
This 9th level Cleric spell scroll, also called the True Name of Ajana, lets the caster speak the True Name one time. That is, to speak all true statements that can’t be proven true simultaneously.
Speaking the True Name then gives the caster power over Ajana’s creations - the power to cast Wish one time - and permanently increases the caster’s Wisdom by 1.
Note that although the True Name of Ajana is a "spell scroll" in English, it's not exactly a "spell scroll" in strict D&D 5.5e terms; it's a one-use magic item. The caster must be able to cast 9th level Cleric spells to use the scroll.
They said they didn't want the scroll and James initially left it behind Kalla's door.
They turned to the seven strange women and had a brief acid discussion with them. Marina said the women weren't helping them and accused them of working for Ishild. To this one of the women said, "We're not here to help you. We’re here for catharsis, from watching the tragedy of your actions.” Marina called the woman a bitch.
Beale asked the women, "What do you suggest about the True Name of Ajana? We want to use it for good, but Ishild is looking for it." The women said that Ishild wanted to use it to summon Ajana to the Grimoire. Beale asked if they should destroy the scroll, but the women just said it was up to him.
Marina turned back to Marak and said, "A very powerful lich is looking for this scroll, to summon Ajana and do God knows what. Is the scroll going to be safe here?" Marad said that the scroll was available to "anyone who solves the puzzle."
Amy and James discussed how Beale had already given Ishild the answer to the puzzle, and James went back in the door and took the scroll. James said Beale would make a mock scroll and leave it in the original scroll's place; Henele said he would replace the scroll with one that just said "suck it."
They asked Marad what the three angels would do now that the True Name had been claimed, and Marad said they would roam the land solving injustices, like Caine on Kung Fu. They asked if Marad had any clues about the black horse, but Marad just waited silently for them to leave. My notes say one of the players said, "There's nothing more to do here except give them the finger and leave," but the notes don't say whether "them" referred to the angels or the seven strange women.
They left, going back up the three stairwells. Back on the ground floor though, three more gentlemen in bowler hats came in, with Manfred Unger as their captive. The party fought the gentlemen (Brothers of the True Name) and defeated them, but we elided over the fight because we didn't have much time left, and because the party had just had a similar fight at Steam Reasoning Hall.
They asked Manfred why the Brothers had attacked him, and Manfred told them that they were upset he was researching "true statements that can't be proven true."
They also gave Manfred their notes from the black horse - the list of their guesses and the horse's responses. Manfred studied them and made a Math (Nature) check. He rolled 16 on the die, and told them that the horse plays Mastermind.
Tracy asked what would be most fun to do next, and I suggested closing the loop with Ishild, and going to Hilde to get the Greencake. They went to the Grimoire to talk with Ishild.
The Hollin Grimoire, tenth basement
As usual, they came down the spiral stair I, and found Ishild at S, near his day couch and opium pipe.
