save

.vscode/settings.json

@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
         "Alfie",
         "Almuth",
         "Alustriel",
+        "bedeviler",
         "beholderkin",
         "Brog",
         "Brugrock",
@@ -32,6 +33,8 @@
         "Eldath",
         "extraplanar",
         "extraplanars",
+        "eyedrake",
+        "eyedrakes",
         "Faerûn",
         "Faerûnian",
         "ferrofluid",

acl.cool/site/draft/umbral4.dj

@@ -36,17 +36,15 @@ As Themberchaud and Cogyth--- so the dragon addresses the party's quarry--- get
 
 > Themberchaud has finally respected my wishes about... his _health!?_
 
-Assured for the moment of their security, but acutely aware of their need to depart before the dragon gets to devouring the cake underfoot, the party question their orbic interlocutor. As Carmal explains the chaos brought about in the surrounding country by Cogyth's festivities, conversation turns to the vanished villagers and to the farmland Louisa saw, now nowhere to be found. By way of answer, the beholder calls out a name, "Cheshira", and the same three-armed hag from the fields appears at his side. Party members glean the situation in snippets of heated conversation between the fiend and the aberration.
+Assured for the moment of their security, but acutely aware of their need to depart before the dragon gets to devouring the cake underfoot, the party question their orbic interlocutor. As Carmal explains the chaos brought about in the surrounding country by Cogyth's _festivities_, conversation turns to the vanished villagers and to the farmland Louisa saw, now nowhere to be found. By way of answer, the beholder calls out a name, "Cheshira", and the same three-armed hag from the fields appears at his side. Party members glean the situation in snippets of heated conversation between the fiend and the aberration.
 
 Cogyth employed Cheshira as security, to prevent interference by townsfolk with his celebratory preparations, but, in attracting an adventuring party to his abode, the hag has gone too far. Were their business not concluded, she would surely be fired, but as it is, she should take her things and get out of Cogyth's sight. The beholder's anger suggests he was unaware of the people going missing in the area, and his conduct tells the party they needn't worry about him repeating the phenomenon; willfully sowing chaos in the northern lands would run counter to his lawful nature.
 
-Though some questions still burn on party member's tongues, it is not long before the dragon's desire to eat cake overcomes his enjoyment of companionable conversation and he leaps up to shovel untold quantities of sponge down his smoking gullet. Not even Themberchaud could possibly consume the whole of Brog Burgest, but our heroes aren't ones to stick around in the face of what may well be certain obliteration--- party members split as best they can. Louisa takes to the air with Gottlob in tow. Clementine, polymorphed into an ancient winged beast by Carmal, carries the rest of the party cloudward. Cheshira, for her part, makes haste down the mountainside, hoping to escape before the party notices her absence.
-
-She has no such luck. Adventurers so reputed, so accomplished as these, would never let a night hag escape unmolested; certainly not a night hag that cursed one of their number and holds a score of people in glassy-eyed servitude. Dropping from the air onto the path surrounding the twisted fiend, party members cut off Cheshira's escape on all sides and Almuth encases her in a resilient sphere before she can so much as object. With flight denied to her, she turns to a hag's most trusted and potent weapon: talk, deception, her corrupting tongue. Addressing Louisa directly, Cheshira spins a tale in which her curse was a boon, an impetus to struggle and improve that pushed the wizard to far greater heights than ever she could have achieved on her own, in that school of small-minded hacks she used to attend.
-
-The llama is unconvinced; a wizard knows better than to fall for a hag's tricks. Cornered, and as Almuth's spell expires, Cheshira turns to her last resort: battle. 
+Though some questions still burn on party member's tongues, it is not long before the dragon's desire to eat cake overcomes his enjoyment of companionable conversation and he leaps up to shovel untold quantities of sponge down his smoking gullet. Not even Themberchaud could possibly consume the whole of Brog Burgest, but our heroes aren't ones to stick around in the face of such barely-bridled ravening--- party members split as best they can. Louisa takes to the air with Gottlob in tow. Clementine, polymorphed into an ancient winged beast by Carmal, carries the rest of the party cloudward. Cheshira, for her part, makes haste down the mountainside, hoping to escape before the party notices her absence.
 
+The hag has no such luck. Adventurers so reputed, so accomplished as these, would never let a fiend escape unmolested; certainly not a night hag that cursed one of their number and holds a score of people in glassy-eyed servitude. Dropping from the air in amongst a cluster of cottages that lie at one outlet of the path to earthen ground, party members cut off Cheshira's escape on all sides. Almuth encases her in a resilient sphere before she can so much as object. With flight denied to her, she turns to a hag's most trusted and potent weapon: talk, deception, her corrupting tongue. Addressing Louisa directly, Cheshira spins a tale in which the curse she laid was a boon, an impetus to struggle and improve that pushed the wizard to far greater heights than ever she could have achieved on her own, in that school of small-minded hacks she used to attend. The llama is unconvinced; a wizard knows better than to fall for a hag's tricks. Cornered, as Almuth's spell expires, Cheshira turns to her last resort: battle. 
 
+Leaping atop a snug hovel, the bedeviler shutters reality under a crimson sky. A wavering field of tinted cosmic force--- a product of Cheshira's casting--- surrounds the cluster of cabins to cut them free of their worldly tethers so they and their surrounds may slip down, unhindered, into the falsity of the Hag's domain. Far above, misty, distorted images of Themberchaud and Cogyth appear as reflected in a pond during high winds. They dance like anguished spectres nearer and nearer the field's delimitations, and the hag grasps the wispy images as they come into focus, the trio of her talons weaving two into one[^make_eyedrakes]. 
 
 
 
@@ -61,4 +59,6 @@ The llama is unconvinced; a wizard knows better than to fall for a hag's tricks.
 
 [^dragon]: [Themberchaud](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Themberchaud), the Wyrmsmith of Gracklstugh, the Father of Flame, the Everburning! What a pickle...
 
-[^divine]: Almuth's player rolled `20` on "Divine Intervention".
+[^divine]: Almuth's player rolled `20` on "Divine Intervention".
+
+[^make_eyedrakes]: Through the nature of a beholder's dreams, the lingering sentiment Cogyth felt while wishing to reunite with Themberchaud crossed into the feywild, and Cheshira gives it the shape of an eyedrake. Just before making it flesh, she splits it in two.