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acl.cool/site/draft/umbral4.dj

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 # Umbral Gaze 4: Candle-head
 
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-[^divine]: A natural 20 at the most opportune time
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-{% ---------------------------------- %}
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 On the heels of their seafaring victory over [the Cyclone](/writings/umbral3/), the party takes a portal to Neverwinter[^neverwinter], "the City of Skilled Hands", lying not far from the next beholder. The settlement offers plenty a nook and corner store from which our heroes can obtain much-needed supplies, and they stock up with vigor. Clementine is lucky enough to find some gilded acorns; Gottlob replenishes his stash of components for "revivify". Come dawn, members of the Wintershield Watchmen[^ww]--- at Tasha's behest--- brief our heroes on their quarry, and the burly dwarves who explain leave the party with an impression of otherworldly absurdity.
 
 The beholder's lair is known to the denizens of Neverwinter as Brog Burgest, "cake pile", for to call the dulcet travesty a "mountain" would be an insult to mountains, but "pile" fails to capture the scale of the topography. Brog Burgest's peak vanishes upward among clouds. A beholder is known by the locals to have taken up residence at the pile, and since it arrived, townspeople and passers-through have vanished at a terrible pace. A correspondence must be assumed.
@@ -16,7 +11,7 @@ The party departs with haste, though the journey to the mountain is not long, an
 
 Humanoids--- dead-eyed humans, mostly--- labor in fields of blue-topped grain. Gnomes in bright red hats[^redcap] keep the workers in line, their sickles and whips employed eagerly to _encourage_ any slaves who seem to fall behind. Chained manacles at the ankles of the fitter of their charges seem aimed to prevent escape, though where a runaway could escape _to_, Louisa cannot tell; all is only fields and cliffs as far as she can see.
 
-Rendering herself invisible with a spell, the llama swoops closer to investigate, but cold fingers of dread grip her heart at what she discovers. The wizard's own body, her _human_ body, threshes indigo grass at the edge of the nearest plot; the gaze of a scythe-wielding slave master fixes... her? it..? in cruel contempt from a flanking position. The intensity of labour demanded by the redcaps shows itself in her body's condition. Thin, trembling arms beat the grain at increasing intervals, just today's hours of hard labor taking their toll of strength. Her dark hair sports bits of straw and chaff among its tangles; her olive skin is caked with dust and sweat. Whether the glassy, unblinking eyes are a product of exhaustion or of whatever magic moves her presumedly uninhabited form, Louisa only wishes she could tell.
+Rendering herself invisible with a spell, the llama swoops closer to investigate, but cold fingers of dread grip her heart at what she discovers. The wizard's own body, her _human_ body, threshes indigo grass at the edge of the nearest plot; the gaze of a scythe-wielding slave master fixes... her? it..? in cruel contempt from a flanking position. The intensity of labour demanded by the redcaps shows itself in her body's condition. Thin, trembling arms beat the grain at increasing intervals, just today's hours of hard labor taking their toll of strength. Her dark brown hair sports bits of straw and chaff among its tangles; her olive skin is caked with dust and sweat. Whether the glassy, unblinking eyes are a product of exhaustion or of whatever magic moves her presumedly uninhabited form, Louisa only wishes she could tell.
 
 The wizard pauses here, for a moment, to consider her options. She knows that all the desperate longing in the world cannot overcome the tactical reality of the situation on the farmland below--- there is no way she can rescue her human form right now--- but her nature won't allow her to leave without some sort of consolation. Taking a diving pass, the llama spits upon the redcap slave master that pokes mirthfully at her vacated flesh, but as she does, a twisted and ancient three-armed woman appears, black cloth obscuring all but her hands and the dome of here spiral-horned head[^hag]. Locking eyes with Louisa, the creature strikes with a hammer of pure arcane force that sends her flying back down the mountainside, but as she plummets, a single thought fights its way through shock and pain to the forefront of her mind: that twisted hag is the very same figure that slunk away on the night that she was trapped in her present form, cursed to wander Faerûn a llama.
 
@@ -42,10 +37,15 @@ Cogyth employed Cheshira as security, to prevent interference by townsfolk with
 
 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. 
+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, and Louisa reads disdain in Cheshira's eyes. 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]. 
+Leaping atop a snug hovel, the bedeviler shutters reality under a crimson sky. Wavering bands of tinted cosmic force--- a product of Cheshira's casting--- surround the cluster of cabins to cut them free of their worldly tethers, letting and their surrounds 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--- the hag grasps at the wispy forms as they come into focus. Her twisted trio of arms weaves two into one[^make_eyedrakes]--- an eyedrake condenses in the red-yellow mists--- but before the mass of droplets can form solid flesh, the hag cleaves it down the middle. _Two_ eyedrakes are born.
 
+Surprised by the eyedrakes' sudden appearance and the _disappearance_ of Faerûn's firmaments, the party are too slow to prevent Cheshira's next move. Her minions unleashed upon her enemy, she seals herself again in an impenetrable sphere, now of her own device. Unable to access their true foe for now, the party manages contends admirably. To handle the combined might of two eyedrakes would be a tall order on any day, but Louisa is incensed; she sees no world in which the party's victory is not assured, in which her human body is returned to her. The first beholder catches Almuth about his face with a wave of anti-magic breath, wounding him badly, before falling to the llama's evocations--- the second breaths its retaliation across the battlefield, but in its haste to recover from the loss of its twin has made a fatal mistake: the cone of anti-magic shatters Cheshira's barrier.
+
+As off a spring, Louisa acts. She knows exactly what spell the situation demands, a spell only she can cast in this moment. Chesira's glances round in wild dismay as her barrier falls catch Lousia's glare of determination; the sounds of the party clashing with the remaining eyedrake fall away, and for a moment the two lock eyes in their own yet-smaller pocket of reality before, at a word from the llama's mouth, the hag is gone with a pop!
+
+The main threat dealth with[^banish]--- for now, at least--- Louisa turns her attention to the final, nearly fallen eyedrake as it winds up for another bout of anti-magic breath. The wave of numbing force never comes; the wizard's fireball puts an end to all that.
 
 
 
@@ -59,6 +59,10 @@ Leaping atop a snug hovel, the bedeviler shutters reality under a crimson sky. A
 
 [^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" (in his birthday session, no less)
 
-[^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.
+[^make_eyedrakes]: Extrasessional information: "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[^eyedrake]. Just before making it flesh, she splits it in two."
+
+[^eyedrake]: An [eyedrake](https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Eyedrake) is a lesser beholderkin that comes about when beholders dream of a dragon.
+
+[^banish]: Lousisa casts bannishment, sending the night hag directly to hell.