Corliss - Encounter 3

Finding a small patch of safe grass, Corliss sits on the ground, apparates an elegant elven styled rapier, and summons the hexblade’s curse.  The shadows from under plants and around the jungle hurry towards him and engulf his body in a cloud of shadows.  He opens his eyes seeing a landscape of shadow and smoke and calls out to his benefactor, emboldened and even more self-confident. 

I have taken another, final step down the path you’ve laid.   The call of my mother’s music is something I can’t afford to ignore any longer.  I have given my word to pay you back for your gifts.  I will continue searching for your beacons.  

There is a long pause as dense smoke comes wafts tantalizing close and suggests tempting and wondrous forms: majestic horses, beautiful maidens, and ripe fruit. But, like clouds in the summer sky, as each form threatens to become palpable enough to touch, it dissolves as if it never existed.

Though a bit of guidance on what exactly I am looking for would be great, since I seemingly only found one, and only because you just showed up.  I am still your instrument, but I need to play my mother’s music again.

Thunder shatters what had been a ghostly quiet and the dense smoke roils, only this time hungry eyes and fanged mouths appear inches from Corliss's face on all sides. Though he is confident enough to stand his ground, he can't help but to duck as the tongue of one beastly form lashes out towards his head.

So insolent.

Perhaps that will be of value in the end. You should hope.

I warned you, have you learned why you play?

The smoke clears and Corliss suddenly finds himself in the middle of an empty plain, his elvish sight able to see for miles in all directions. And there is nothing, nothing except a creeping darkness pooled at his feet.

No. And I haven't found the beacons because you haven't shown me how to find them, like a deaf man searching for the right notes....its never going to happen unless I stumble over them accidentally.  I play for her memory, my heritage, the family I've lost along the way, and I've grown tired of your cryptic nature so when you want to show me the way, I will heed, if you want to play games, feel free, I will play music instead.

More silence.

So you do know. You play for her memory. But what song do you play? 

Yes, think.

Pause.

Yes, i can feel it rise within you. The Bridges of Erenlune.

Is that not the song engraved in your memory. Is that not the song inexorably tied to your memories of her?

The words - ah, the words are ephemeral - words are but wind.  But the tune...

When Lathander abandoned the Fey, when he created his elves at the beginning of the Fourth Age and turned his back on us, he didn't just repudiate us who had fostered him, taught him, and made him who he was. Oh no, he also stole from us. He stole that song. Music containing the power of the Fey. 

So, though I abhor your contemptuous manner, and that brazen response, a reward you will have. But just a reward is not fitting. Perhaps the lash will help.

A wild swirling occurs and a figure rises from the ground. Slender, imperious. It towers over Corliss as he sits on the ground. Discordant music plays and vines reach up to envelop him, tightening around his torso, his legs, and his throat. He is pulled to the ground, trapped, desperately gasping for air as a serrated vine draws blood as it rasps across the protruding veins in his neck.

A flash of pain convulses his body. Corliss manages to open his eyes and look up as the form of Cappen Varra kicks again, driving his boot deep into his ribs. Corliss grimaces but does not cry out. Every fiber of his being refuses to admit to any pain, refuses to bend, refuses to submit to this creature.

I am your superior in every way.

Cappen Varra's eyes flash, spittle flies from his mouth as he strikes again and again, each word shouted in conjunction with a fierce blow.

Skill.

Knowledge.

Talent.

Class.

Heritage.

He pauses and his shoulders slump in defeat.

I cannot master that damn song.

So, I'm forced to tell you this. To educate you. The beacons are stone artifacts made by the dwarves. The dwarves gave them - often - as presents to their elvish allies. Elves work in wood, sometimes they petrify it, but they never work in stone.

You child. Your castle - Hold Rendalia - was built by dwarves as an Elvish embassy. The statue of Lathander holds a beacon. 

That beacon will illuminate the ley lines. 

He grits his teeth.

When that damn song is played.

He pauses as if he is being instructed by a voice that only he can hear. Cappan steps back.

Play that song in the presence of a beacon. The fey energy will power the beacon and illuminate the ley lines. The ley lines are important, fool. At the end, the Ceremony of the Aspirants will occur at the conjunction of the most powerful ley lines. The Grand Magistrate needs to tap that power to begin the ceremony.

I'll be there. At our master's side.

A few steps from godhood.

I certainly hope that nothing happens to you at the last moment. Oh, what a shame.

Everything fades and one last phrase is heard.

Take this.

Corliss snaps alert and finds himself sitting in the grass outside of the Temple of Papazotl again. He feels bruised and battered, but a quick check finds no visible marks. However, serrated vines have wrapped around his pact weapon and the blood searing spear. With the two laid across his lap Corliss spend an hour to cast the Pact of the Blade ritual. The weapons meld together, the rapier dissolving into the shaft of the spear, the elegant tracery that had covered its blade now etched in the wood. Corliss stands and test swings his new pact weapon, the Blood Searing Spear.