Session C19 — The Watcher in the Weave

Summary

The party crosses into the Faerzress — a pocket of Underdark wild magic that breaks teleportation, scrying, and tracking — and immediately stumbles into four shambling mounds. Roland gets engulfed; Kavu charges in with his whip, screams "Let him go!", and bursts the mound open to free him. Lireal eats the next engulf and nat-20s her way back out on the same turn. Roland's 38-damage smite drops a third mound; Kefkas's echo finishes the fourth. Looting turns up a Deck of Illusions that bonds itself permanently to Kavu — its cards bear his face, Calidorn's, a watching hag's, and Haldak labeled "Troll." Syl, in Roland's lantern, uses the moment to make Roland swear never to hand her to Haldak. The party makes camp; on Selene's watch, a man with glowing red eyes parts the air, nods at her, and is gone. Kefkas's player is absent.

Key Events

Pre-Session — Travel, Bandaging, and the Plan

Haldak gave the recap with characteristic eccentricity, attributing the C18 phase spiders to the Scarlet Widow ("she summoned six phase spiders") — the DM corrected for the record: "the drider did not summon the phase spiders in any way, shape, or form, nor was it implied that that was the case. They just appeared conveniently." Haldak agreed: "They just appeared conveniently, yeah."

Selene articulated the plan: keep moving under Pass Without Trace, push as far as possible while still fresh, and make camp close enough to Neverlight Grove to approach it rested in the morning. Othorion worried about the Velkynvelve hunting party catching them mid-rest. The DM summarized: "You will go as far as you can before you all get too exhausted, and if you make it to the Grove, you'll camp, and if you don't, you'll camp. If you say 'we won't camp until we get there' and it's still a week away, you're going to die. I will happily murder everybody from exhaustion."

Selene cast Pass Without Trace (+10 stealth for the hour). She marked the spell slot used in case the party reconsidered.

Othorion's punctured lung was discussed but not retreated this session — the wound was already bandaged and stabilized in C18; another medicine attempt was redundant. The DM was open to different magical interventions on a later day.

The Faerzress

Two hours of travel south brought the party to a chasm spanning a darkness too deep to see the bottom. A short wooden bridge crossed it, and a second bridge — far above — crossed through a tunnel-roof much higher up.

The air on the far side glowed an eerily purple magical effluvia, suffusing the cavern past the bridge for an unknown distance. Nobody had seen it before. The DM let Othorion roll a History check with advantage to recall what Jarlaxle had told him.

He succeeded. He recalled the name: Faerzress (DM pronounced Faresrez).

The Faerzress is wild Underdark magic. Inside it:

• Teleportation magic fails.
• Scrying and divination magic fail — possibly all divination, the details fuzzy in Othorion's memory.
• Tracking by magical means is nearly impossible.
• One of the reasons Menzoberranzan still stands — armies cannot teleport in, nobody can scry the city without deific aid.
• Lolth doesn't give a shit about it. Some say she is the reason for it. Older tales suggest a connection to the fall of the Drow.

Haldak asked what it felt like. The DM described it: "It's like when your arm starts to fall asleep — a little tingly. It's not the bad part where it really hurts. It's the part right before that. It's the 'you're gonna pay for it later' feeling."

Haldak: "Pins and needles."

The party crossed in.

The Shambling Mounds

From the south corridor came the sound of multiple things shuffling — not footsteps. Selene perception-checked at 12: at least two of them, definitely not feet, just shuffling.

Doof, who needed no further provocation, took the lead. He rolled a 7 on stealth, padded forward on wet grung feet — clap, clap, clap — and rounded the corner directly into a mound of purple vegetation that turned to face him. Three more shifted into view behind it. As his presence registered, all four pivoted toward him in unison.

Selene rolled survival with advantage and identified them: shambling mounds. She passed the warning down the line:

• Resistant to cold and fire.
• Immune to lightning — lightning heals them.
• Cannot be deafened or exhausted (sentient plants).
• Blindsight; no vision to obscure.
• They swallow prey and crush it like a constrictor; they also slap with whip-tendrils.
• "Piercing damage doesn't really do it for them."

Selene: "Great. I'm gonna be so useful in this fight."

Initiative rolled. Othorion nat-20'd ("Renegade" hype track); Doof rolled a 29. The DM started the fight with the front-loaded heroes.

Combat — Round One

Othorion couldn't reach anything from the back of a fatal funnel. He held an action to fire his hand crossbow at the first mound to come within 30 feet.

Selene moved up cautiously and fired. Natural 20. The arrow perforated the lead mound — +7 piercing damage lingering injury rolled onto the creature itself ("Lingering damage applies to the enemies too," the DM noted). Her second arrow buried itself fully inside another mound for 14 damage, "vanishing inside it."

Doof charged in and started punching. His grung skin-touch poison failed its first save against the lead mound — poisoned. He landed a second punch. A third. A bonus action haste-punch.

Roland heeded Selene's warning — no Sacred Flame, no lightning, no fire — drew his longbow, and missed. And missed. And then fired so wildly that the arrow sailed straight over all four mounds and disappeared into the chasm, lost forever. "I didn't roll above a nine on any of those rolls," he admitted. "Like, on the die." The party began cheerfully suggesting he take a knee. Five levels of exhaustion is five levels of exhaustion.

Haldak stepped up and cast Chrono Lance — temporal stutter affecting the two front mounds, halving their walking speed and giving them disadvantage on Dex saves. Both failed their Wisdom saves (8 and 12 against DC 13). As he cast, he felt the weave warp around the spell. The DM described it: "You can see that the wave warps in an interesting way. It concerns you about casting spells in this Faerzress. You held it together, but it was harder than it should have been."

Lireal flowed up beside Othorion, spat "Fucking Faerzress — I feel pretty fucking useless," and drew her moon-touch scimitar and her magical dagger anyway. "Y'all so fucking horny," the DM observed.

Kavu's Toll the Dead rang out — "Meet your end, you gross, terrible, horrible, bad thing!" The bell rang for 17. The DM described the wave-warp: "Same as Kavu — you absolutely saw the weave do something weird."

Roland Engulfed

The lead mound, slow and poisoned, couldn't reach Doof thanks to Haldak's spell. Another mound shouldered past it and charged Roland — and made the engulf attack.

DC 15 STR save. Roland rolled a 7.

He was swallowed whole — blinded, restrained, dropped into the wet plant-darkness of the mound's interior. 3d6 lightning damage at the start of each of his turns, and the lightning was healing the mound.

The DM, with relish: "Kavu, you just watched Roland get sucked into oblivion."

Kavu charged forward 10 feet and drew his whip for the first time in a long while. Selene: "You haven't used that in a while." He attacked with Pack Tactics advantage (Lireal flanking), shouted at the mound — "Let go of hands!" — and cracked the whip into the engulfing mass. The DM narrated his second swing: "Kavu screams at it — Let him go!" The chromatic burn from his bonus-action infusion crackled across the lash. The mound burst apart in a wash of dissolving plant matter and Roland stumbled out of it on his feet, dripping, plant tendrils sloughing off him onto the cavern floor "like things were coming out of places he didn't know he had." (The kobold cleric, with one arm and a whip, had pulled the captain out of a creature's stomach.)

Then Lireal moved up to flank the next mound — and that one got an attack of opportunity, hit her, and engulfed her instead. She rolled a natural 20 on her strength save and tore herself out on the same beat. "If my man won't cuddle me," the DM narrated for her, "you won't cuddle me."

"I was trying to be PG. Shut your fucking horny mouths," the DM added.

The Killing Blows

With Roland freed and Lireal back on her feet, the party closed in on the two remaining mounds. Othorion used Umbral Step (his Silent Weaver reaction skill — explicitly not teleportation, so the Faerzress didn't break it) to reposition into a flanking position and laid in with rapier and serpent fang — a 24-damage off-hand sneak attack helped soften one.

Then Roland — five exhaustion levels and all — had had enough of this shit. He pulled his big tarrasque-tooth claymore. Divine Smite. 38 damage. 68 total. The mound burst.

The DM: "It's dead, Jay. It's dead, Jim. It would have a scar on its knee."

Roland: "Stop, he's already dead!"

The last mound rolled a natural 1 trying to slap Haldak (who had chosen Dodge — "Man, dodging is powerful. I can't believe we don't use it more often") and pulled itself toward an imaginary target instead, eating opportunity attacks from both Haldak and Doof. Then Kefkas's echo — running silently without its owner — landed an Emberwake strike and finished it.

The Loot of the Mounds

Roland searched the four corpses for things they had engulfed and digested. Coin first:

• Mound one: 5 copper.
• Mound two: 6 silver.
• Mound three: 14 gold, an unidentified ring, an etched stone covered in spider-glyphs, and a deck of playing cards.
• Mound four: miscellaneous odds and ends.

Doof ate a tendril off one of the corpses on a curiosity-check. It tasted "like beef but also like a zucchini — sickly sweet." He pocketed several more tendrils as rations (+5 days' food). The party referred to them collectively as "pre-sauced zoodles."

The party then shoved all four mounds off the bridge to clean up the trail. They never heard the bodies hit bottom. "A lot of zucchini juice everywhere," the DM noted.

The Ring and the Spider Stone

Kavu took the items to identify, with Syl — the spren bound to Roland's lantern — walking him through the process as a downtime tutorial. Haldak tried to hype him: "You gotta feel the weave in your blood, Kavu."

The ring rolled at +2 Arcana for an 11. Kavu could tell it summoned something: "I know it has summoning properties. I just don't... I can't figure out what it summons. Hmm. It summons something. Am I close, Syl?" He handed it back to Roland for now.

For the spider stone, Kavu dug into his existing inventory and pulled out the golden monocle the party had recovered from inside the Tarrasque way back in C15 — confirmed non-magical, but useful for inspecting small objects. He put it on. "Oh my God, he's so stupid looking with a monocle. His eyes are humongous. It's like a Cyclops, but miniature." He held the spider stone up to the lens. "Okay, this one's stumping me, but it is spider-related. I don't feel anything coming from it." He stashed it in his Bag of Holding to study tomorrow. The party noted the find with concern, given the drider currently obsessed with Kefkas and the Lolth-aligned hunters behind them.

The Deck of Illusions

Kavu pulled the deck out next. Syl's voice cracked through the lantern: "Oh holy shit. Oh Jesus. Oh gods." — nobody had ever heard her make that noise before. "Begone thoughts. I am a man of God," she added. "Just stop. You're aware of the magic decks in the world. I can't believe they're still around — I figured someone would have taken responsibility and destroyed these."

Kavu rolled a natural 20 on Arcana. "That's the first time I've crit since we did the screens," Dave noted. The illusion-school sigil on the cover registered immediately, and Kavu recalled Calidorn's old lectures about the dangerous magic decks of the world. The deck fell into the "not very dangerous, very useful, but still kind of stupid" category. Kavu: "On a scale of playing cards to many things, where does this fall?"

Kavu read out the rules: thirty-four cards in a complete deck (this one had only twenty — fourteen were missing somewhere in the world), drawn at random, throw a card up to thirty feet, an illusion of the depicted creature appears and behaves as a real creature except it can do no harm. DC 15 Intelligence to see through it. Used cards burn. The deck refills itself slowly over time. He spread the deck face-up on the ground to inventory what he had, knowing the cards would only personalize to him as the viewer. The DM read them out:

• Ace of Hearts — a fat red dragon. "My favorite card."
• King of Hearts — a knight and four guards.
• Queen of Hearts — an outrageously sexy male and female devil back-to-back, tongues out.
• Ten of Hearts — a confused old white-bearded man holding a giant comb. Kavu: "I'm going to call him Clueless."
• Ace of Diamonds — a beholder marveling at a goldfish in a tank.
• King of Diamonds — Calidorn and Kavu standing side by side. Kavu: "Rowland! I think you have a friend!" (He meant himself; he was mid-table-banter.)
• Queen of Diamonds — a hag in darkness. "As you look at the card, you can see that it is actively looking at you. The eyes follow."
• Jack of Diamonds — Artemis Entreri flipping you off.
• Ten of Diamonds — a giant on fire. Kavu: "Hold on — is it a giant on fire, or a fire giant? Because that's two different things."
• Nine of Diamonds — Boulders for Muscles in a Mickey Mouse mage hat. "You play and you just hear an echo," Kavu said. He swore he could hear, faintly, When You Wish Upon a Star. Selene: "That's copyrighted!"
• Ace of Spades — Acererak, the archlich himself. The DM spelled it out — "A-C-E-R-A-K — Ace-rerak" — landing the Ace-of-Spades pun. Kavu: "Holy crap."
• King of Spades — a priest in a pilgrim hat with floppy sides; a dwarf with vines for hair; a beautiful red-haired tan-skinned female monk; all three facing a shrouded Dracolich. Kavu slid this card under another card to keep it close.
• Jack of Spades — an old, capable knight wearing the symbol of Waterdeep.
• Ten of Spades — Gerti on her ice throne, disgruntled, head in hand. "Don't let Haldak get that card." Kavu slid this one under a different card, far from any other Haldak might want.
• Nine of Spades — Haldak. The card was labeled, at the top, Troll.
• Ace of Clubs — a metal man in a trench coat with a red scarf and a gun. Roland: "Hey, I know who that is."
• Queen of Clubs — "the hottest devil you have ever seen in your life." Kavu: "I'll save that one for later."
• Both Jokers — pictures of Kavu. In both, he is missing the arm.

Kavu scooped the cards back up and shuffled. "Anyone want it? I might be able to do something with it because, you know, I'm a little down. But does anyone else have any plans for it?" Othorion declined: "I think I'm all right." Haldak volunteered. Selene said "Sure, I'll take it" — meaning the table-banter sense of "anything to keep it from Haldak."

Kavu handed the deck to Selene.

The instant her fingers closed on it, the deck vanished from her hand and reappeared in Kavu's pocket. When he pulled it back out, the cover had changed — the illusion-school sigil was gone. In its place was his own face, staring back at him.

Kavu: "S-Sylphrena? Sylphretta?" (stuttering her name as the deck refused to leave him).

Sylphrena: "You are the fucking owner of that now. Until you die and someone else picks it up. Those cards are specific to you. Someone else would have seen completely different cards."

Kavu: "Until I die?" A pause. "Okay. I'm sorry, guys. I guess I'm using them."

Selene: "He's going to stab you for them."

Sylphrena's Warning

While Kavu read out the cards of the Deck, Syl — bound to Roland's lantern, and helping Kavu in the background with the identification process — spoke into Roland's mind directly.

"Promise me something."

"Uh-huh."

"You are never going to hand me to Haldak. Never."

"Never. Okay."

"You will throw me into the deepest pit known to man before you hand me to Haldak, right?"

"Okay."

"Good."

Haldak, at the table: "I hear that. I hear that."

Syl's contempt for Haldak is now textual. The Ten of Spades — Gerti, on her ice throne, "Don't let Haldak get that card" — agrees.

The Climb, the Bridge, and the Drow Silk

The party climbed an 80-foot ladder to reach the upper bridge passage. Doof climbed first, Kavu (still one-armed) hauled himself up "with one fucking arm," and Haldak watched from below to "get a good view of everything."

The upper bridge was wooden — clearly constructed, not natural. Selene inspected it with advantage on Survival and found a fragment of spider-silk fabric caught in a splinter — "the same material as Othorion's cloak of elvenkind." Drow had used this bridge. Not necessarily recently. Not necessarily long ago.

From the north end of the cavern came a faint, unmistakable smell: fresh surface air. Somewhere a tunnel rose all the way up to the Sword Coast. The DM placed it: "You're either under the ocean or somewhere under the Sword Coast. Caledon's basement. Jesus Christ."

The party did not investigate the north tunnel. They turned south and continued toward Neverlight Grove.

Camp, the Long Rest, and the Calendar

Selene's second Survival check (with advantage) found a defensible cavern half an hour ahead — a freshwater pool in the corner, narrow entrance, only one direction to watch. They did not have tents. "Othorion's sex tent has gotten an upgrade," somebody quipped.

Roland removed his plate armor (no disadvantage on Stealth saves while sleeping). Doof flopped into the pool face-down and fell asleep, "like a dead man floating in a pond with little bubbles."

The DM rolled the long rest's watches. Haldak's went by uneventfully. So did Kavu's. So did Doof's.

Roland dropped from 5 levels of exhaustion to 4. "Hooray," the DM announced flatly.

The DM then re-checked the campaign timeline live (he opened the Obsidian vault on stream): the party had been confused about the date — Haldak thought they'd started on the 19th, but the 19th was Velkynvelve infiltration, weeks ago. After accounting for the Tarrasque traversal, the Underdark crossing, Arashni, Zinni, the Traveler's contact on the 26th, and two long rests since, the DM corrected to: the date is the 28th of Hammer. From the 19th to the 28th the party had traveled 350 miles.

The Watcher in the Weave

Selene took the final watch.

Halfway through, in front of her, she saw the fabric of the air itself shimmer. Like cloth — not wind, not heat-haze. A seam parted in reality.

A man's face looked through. The other side was dark. She could make out only one feature: glowing red eyes. Drow eyes. Predator eyes.

He saw her. He gave her a small, deliberate nod. Then the seam in the world re-knit itself, and he was gone.

Her Longbow of Warning had not triggered. Whoever he was, he had not been hostile.

She woke Kavu and Lireal and reported it. Most Underdark races have red eyes — drow, duergar, maybe svirfneblin — and the parting itself implied teleportation magic operating despite the Faerzress, which suggested either someone working from far outside its boundary, or a caster powerful enough to pierce it. Othorion mused: "Caledon doesn't have red eyes. Does that eliminate him?" The DM — pulling up the Vandree dossier — confirmed Caledon has yellow-orange eyes, and most other drow they knew had red eyes.

The party debated who it might be. They reached no conclusion. The session ended on the 28th of Hammer with the camp packed, the party 76 miles from Neverlight Grove, and Stool eager to go home.

NPCs Encountered

Loot / Discoveries

Party Notes

• Roland: Full-on "exhausted captain" arc this session. Treated by Kavu before the march — "I use a motivational speech on his wound. Get better." Missed every longbow shot in the mound fight — one arrow vanished into the chasm. Engulfed by a shambling mound (DC 15 STR, rolled 7) and took rounds of self-healing-the-enemy lightning damage before Kavu's whip burst the mound open and freed him. On his next turn, pulled his big tarrasque-tooth claymore and ended a different mound in one 38-damage Divine Smite — "Roland's had enough of this shit." During the loot reading, Syl in his lantern made him swear never to hand her to Haldak — to throw her into the deepest pit first. Slept in his underclothes for the first time in a long time and dropped from 5 levels of exhaustion to 4. Kavu: "Roland, you better have white boxes with hearts around them."
• Othorion: Nat-20 initiative ("Renegade" played). Held action turn one. After Kavu's whip freed Roland, used Umbral Step (Silent Weaver reaction; explicitly not teleportation, so the Faerzress didn't break it) to reposition into the second mound's flank. Off-hand serpent fang got plenty of work, including a 24-damage sneak attack on the third mound. Politely declined the Deck of Illusions. Punctured lung still healing on its own (4 days remaining at session start). Dosed with Kavu's last healing potion at camp. Fielded extensive table commentary about his pants, his ass, and Lireal's intentions
• Kavu: The session's MVP. Cast Toll the Dead for 17 — "Meet your end, you gross, terrible, horrible, bad thing!" — and felt the weave warp around it. Charged into the engulf with his whip and burst the mound open to free Roland. Got Pack Tactics advantage off Lireal's flank, applied Chromatic Infusion as a bonus action ("YOU WILL TICKLE NOTHING!"), and screamed "Let go of hands!" / "Let him go!" as the chromatic burn cracked through the mound and broke it apart. (Also: "I see you're still standing! Bye!" on a missed strike against another mound earlier.) Identified the magic loot — nat-20 Arcana on the deck ("first time I've crit since we did the screens"), used his Tarrasque-recovered golden monocle to inspect the spider stone, gave back the summoning-ring as still-unidentified. Then got bonded to the Deck of Illusions for life when it teleported back into his pocket from Selene's hand. "Until I die? Okay. I'm sorry, guys. I guess I'm using them." Climbed the 80-foot bridge one-armed, deliberately and slowly. Dropped his last healing potion to Othorion (briefly, in his head, contemplating handing him a draught of poison instead). Put forward the most useful theory about the surface tunnel north of the bridge: "Especially if this is an exit from the underdark they may use occasionally — because if fresh air is coming from that way, it could be the surface." Ran the watch order discussion ("Probably four two-hour watches, right? Two, four, six, eight.") and slotted himself second
• Haldak: Gave the recap (with creative liberties about the Scarlet Widow summoning the phase spiders — the DM corrected him on the record). Cast Chrono Lance and crippled multiple mounds with the temporal stutter. Felt the weave warp when casting in the Faerzress. Chose Dodge for the last mound ("Man, dodging is powerful. I can't believe we don't use it more often") and slipped three slap attacks. Card revealed in the Deck: he is the Nine of Spades, labeled "Troll", and Gerti specifically warned Kavu not to let him have it. Syl, separately, made Roland swear to throw her lantern into the deepest pit before handing it to him. There is a pattern forming
• Doof: Took point with a 7 stealth, walked face-first into the shambling mounds. 29 initiative. Poison-touch on every punch — kept refreshing the poisoned condition on the lead mound (and accidentally elbowed Haldak in the back of the head once on a miss). Ate a shambling mound tendril and pocketed several more as rations. Fell asleep face-down in the watering pool during the long rest. Floated. Bubbled. Discussed making it a downtime project to learn how to grapple Large creatures
• Kefkas: Absent. Young couldn't make it. The echo and Kefkas's body ran on autopilot in the rear; Emberwake landed the killing blow on the last shambling mound. No personal moments

Threads Opened / Advanced

NEW THREADS OPENED

• The Watcher in the Weave: A man with glowing red eyes opened a seam in reality during Selene's watch, nodded, and let it close. His Longbow of Warning did not register hostility. Identity unknown. The fact that teleportation worked inside the Faerzress means either he was casting from outside its boundary or has the power to bypass it. Could be Bregan D'aerthe, House Vandree, House Oblodra, the Harpers, or someone else entirely. Caledon (yellow-orange eyes) is ruled out
• The Deck of Illusions: Kavu is now permanently bonded to a personalized magic deck containing images of friends, enemies, and unknown figures. The Queen of Diamonds (a hag) actively watches him. Both Jokers depict him without the arm — which he is missing. The Ten of Spades shows Gerti warning against Haldak. The Nine of Spades depicts Haldak labeled "Troll." Each card is a one-shot illusion. The deck rebuilds itself over time.
• The Spider Stone: An etched stone covered in spider-web symbols recovered from the shambling mounds. Spider-related, but its function is unknown. Given the Scarlet Widow and the Vandree drider connection, this may be drider or Lolth-cult related
• The Summoning Ring: Unidentified. Summons something
• The Surface Tunnel: A north-leading tunnel near the upper bridge smells of fresh surface air. Possibly leads to the Sword Coast — "under Baldur's Gate, under Neverwinter, Caledon's basement, Jesus Christ." The party did not investigate

ADVANCED THREADS

• Roland's Exhaustion: 5 → 4. One level recovered with a long rest. Still significantly impaired but improving

• Sylphrena's Distrust of Haldak: Syl — in Roland's lantern — made Roland swear never to hand her to Haldak, even to the point of throwing her into the deepest pit first. Echoed and corroborated by Gerti's in-card warning on the Ten of Spades. Two independent magical sources now distrust Haldak

• Blackrazor (Bagged, Quiet): Still in the Bag of Holding. No incidents this session — the sword stayed silent

• Approach to Neverlight Grove: Party 76 miles out, on the 28th of Hammer. Should arrive next session. Stool grows eager

• The Faerzress as a Tactical Layer: Spell-casting still works but warps; teleportation magic fails for the party; an unknown party-external observer can apparently still teleport in. Hunters using Faerzress may have a one-sided advantage. Drow tracking is functionally blind through this region

• Drow Pursuit: No direct sightings of the Velkynvelve hunters or Vandree party this session. Drow spider-silk on the upper bridge and the Watcher's appearance both suggest some drow presence in the region — provenance unclear

• The Scarlet Widow: Off-screen this session. The DM teased that J. would voice her in a future session. She is still out there, still obsessed with Kefkas

• Othorion's Punctured Lung: ~4 days remaining at session start. No retreatment this session

Session Summary

A bridge-crossing session that turned into a brutal engulf fight, a magical-deck windfall, and a final cliffhanger that seeded next session's mystery. The introduction of the Faerzress reframed the Underdark from "geographic hazard" into "spellcasting hazard" — Haldak and Kavu both felt the weave warp around them, and Lireal admitted (loudly) that it neutered her usefulness. The shambling mound encounter was a master class in clutch hits and clutch saves: Roland missed every longbow shot, lost an arrow into the chasm, and got swallowed whole; Kavu charged in with his whip, screamed at the mound, and broke it open to free him; Lireal ate the next engulf and nat-20'd her way out on the same turn; Roland's 38-damage smite ended a third mound; Kefkas's echo finished the fourth and last. The post-combat loot was the session's centerpiece — a Deck of Illusions that bonded itself to Kavu (cover now bears his face), with cards depicting Calidorn at his side, a watching hag, Gerti warning against Haldak, and Haldak labeled "Troll." Both Jokers depict Kavu without his arm — which he already isn't wearing. Syl — in Roland's lantern, and quietly assisting Kavu through the identification process — used the moment to make Roland swear never to hand her to Haldak. The campaign now has two independent magical sources warning about Haldak. The session closed with Selene watching the air itself part open and a red-eyed man nod at her before reality re-knit. Kefkas's player was absent; the Scarlet Widow stayed off-stage for that reason. Next session, the party reaches Neverlight Grove.

Key Milestone: Kavu bonded to the Deck of Illusions. Not a tool. A companion.
Key Mystery Opened: The Watcher in the Weave — red-eyed, non-hostile, teleporting through Faerzress.
Key Reveal: Two independent sources (Syl in Roland's lantern, Gerti via the Deck) now distrust Haldak.
Status Heading Forward: 28 Hammer, 1508 DR. 76 miles from Neverlight Grove. Party rested. Roland down to 4 exhaustion. Stool ready to go home. Next session: 2026-05-09.