"A regal ant. A Queen Mother," Molly says with a sigh. "I do not think you can do anything to fix her now. But if you find Sonnorae, she can remake her, remake this entire realm to the way it used to be!"
Even with Molly's tired answer, Pen looks to Visna "I wouldn't know until we tried..." she then looks at the dwarf "... but the attempt would lead to conflict and a potential end. Sonnorae sounds like a better option." she gives the woman a promising nod.
"Aye, the shortest path is not always the truest."
Leaving the Fleshworks behind, you travel next via portal to the Shadow Circus. Tent poles for what must have been an enormous central tent stand bare in a clearing here, ragged pieces of gray cloth clinging to them. A towering central pole still reaches for the sky. Strewn across the area are rusted, broken cages and tumbled wagons missing wheels.
In the central ring of the main tent are the bones of a giant and several bears. To the north slumps a bent and rusted cage of ornate ironwork. Inside are broken armchairs, divans, and tables along with countless remnants of porcelain dishes.
Woven into the elaborate wrought iron, first appearing to be a waxy model, is a crocodile-headed humanoid with cords of fine silk and leather knitted into his flayed and pinned “flesh.” His red eyes flick open when the you arrive, and he calls out to you in a hissing mumble.
However, it quickly becomes apparent that the being is missing his tongue and his teeth. Without them, his speech is unintelligible. You'll have to find some other way to communicate with him...
Pen was already in mid incantation, but stops at Briar's warning. Her cool gaze turns to the man.
Pen looks up at her friend, a softening around her eyes but a darkening remembered pain within in them. "thank you, all pain is relative and a shattering can come from many paths."
Briar's words makes her be careful though, so Pen looks around the room, around the person, with her magical senses, testing for traps or spells before nodding to Briar and opening a path to the crocodile's mind.
We can talk now her voice travels across all of their minds.
"Fear not, Briar. Her strength is such that few can claim it without a honeyed wave bearing the prow of their tongue on, ever on." Visna remarks, a simple pride in her eyes.
The crocodile-headed creature nods to Briar's questions. Once Pen opens up the telepathic bond, you hear the being's hissing voice in your minds.
I beg you to help me, please. My name is Bernaditi. I used to run this circus before the velstracs returned. The fiends corrupted Sonnorae, who took my tongue and my fangs and bound me here in torment. I have information that I am sure you can use. But I would ask you first to return my teeth and tongue to me. They are in the possession of Marzalee the Stitcher!
Where is Marzalee the Stitcher? Pen thinks across the minds. There is no question they would help, her companions are heroes. But mentally she notes when asking for help 'teeth' would have been a better term to use than 'fangs'
In the structure now known as the Fleshworks, Bernaditi replies. Indeed, you remember Molly telling you about Marzalee, the now corrupted giant ant queen.
"We hope to cleanse her of the evil that even now is worked through her unto the detriment of all, but fear not. Though the paths may differ, we will return to you."
Leaving Bernaditi for now, you go through the last portal in Harrowheart to Demon's Bog. A cold lake bed choked with sediment and overgrown with rushes, Demon’s Bog centers around a low, rocky hummock covered in weathered gravestones. Most of the markers are tumbled or askew. You appear beside a stone sarcophagus, its broken lid cast aside. Biting fireflies flit about, their lights the color of blood. Parts of a fallen suspension bridge cross the bog between the hillock and drier land.
Even a cursory search of the gravestones reveals a human body sprawled within a freshly dug and still open grave. The skeletal remains wear a suit of +2 greater resilient brass dragonhide breastplate, and its own +3 greater striking greatsword pierces its unarmored throat and pins it to the ground. Pulling the sword free causes the bones to melt away into sludge.
There doesn't seem to be much else of interest here.
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Not one for robbing Graves it takes Briar a minute to find the courage to remove all the gear from the fallen skeleton, saying a small prayer over the bones before doing so.
"A mighty armament, and raiment to go astride."
She holds out the armor to Visna, "Dragonhide already covers me storied one, I would not wish to take such a prize from you this time."
After claiming the items here, you are ready to take on the Fallen Fortress. You travel by portal to Ticktock Peak, and from there you follow Molly's directions, soon finding the ruins of the once mobile keep on the lower slopes of the mountain. You navigate down to the courtyard of the keep.
Black, tattered banners flap and tremble on bent poles above a slanted courtyard of cracked, dirty cobblestones and garden beds full of weeds and dead plants. Two gigantic, nine-headed trolls stand guard before the keep's entrance here. Upon spotting you, they let out a chorus of cacophonous roars as they rush to attack!
"nine heads seems excessive" Pen mutters rather uncharacteristically.
"And skulls to take," Visna chimes in, for once going with the easy wordplay of a rhyme.
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"You two are starting to scare me with how excited you seem for this." Belmont chimed in at Vesta and Briar with an exasperated tone in his voice. He then pulled out the dwarven clan pistol from his belt holster, spun it in his hand then aimed for the first nine headed troll. "Alright girls and boys! let's dance!" He laughed as he pulled the trigger.
With that shot, the Tiefling rushes to the side, managing to reload his pistol then opening fire on the other troll, his gun letting off a loud and devastating CRACK!
Belmont fires his pistol as he runs for cover, hitting each troll once. However, the wounds quickly regenerate! The many-headed giants stalk towards you, letting out cacophonous roars from all of their heads that threaten to distort your minds!
Success: The creature is stupefied 1 for 1 round.
Failure: The creature is confused for 1 round.
Critical Failure: The creature is confused for 1d4 rounds.
Visna greets the trolls' cacophonous roars with a laugh of fierce joy, beckoning them on to her axe. "On then, O monstrous ones. The bloody end of this clash draws nigh, but never shall it arrive unless we walk its path together."
The sound rocks her head back, sending thunder through her brain, spilling all her organized thoughts. One still remains, protect those she loves. So lighting is grabbed and thrown. Wildly.
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Briar yells mockingly back at the massive trolls, "You've got to find some kind of love in the thrill of the fight for your life, or you'll never get through them all!"
She glances at Visna, "I'll take the big one, you get the other big one ey?"
With that she lurches to the ground and swells into her own massive form cloaked in bloodred shadows which then change to reveal the hulking hyena Briarthorn. Though she doesn't necessarily need to, to tussle with such gargantuan foes, she let's loose a hellish laughing fit at them to goad them on and rile herself up.
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The trolls scream out and Belmont has to hold his ears tightly. He feels his bones rattle, his equipment shake and his head ring like he had just been placed before a giant bell.
He raises his pistol, looking for a target as his ears and vision ring from the noise. He yells out and-
*BANG*
-pulls the trigger.
Visna prepares her weapons with burning oil to exploit the trolls' weaknesses. She demoralizes one, but it still manages to completely evade Pen's chain lightning, the electricity grounding out instead. Belmont's bullet narrowly misses, and Briar swells to massive size.
The trolls move forward to get in between Briar and Visna. They bite at the pair with their numerous heads! Briar gets bitten twice but Visna keeps their teeth at bay.
Visna greets the roaring charge of the trolls with a bellow of her own! She flicks her Last Coin in the air, its desperate fortune shielding her friend Briar, and drenches herself in the sea of shivered shields.
In a confusing moment in the elven wizard's mind, time seemed to almost stop. Then it was back, dashing forward as it always does without a care of who might need a few moments. For some reason, Pen felt the need to help that dashing along.
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Briar's thick hide as well as the deflection granted by the glint of Visna's last coin allow her to duck down just in time for the bites to be grazing.
The titanic Hyena stamps down shaking the ground, then lunges up and catches one of the nine-heads of the Troll under it's chin with her own clamping jaws. Immediately she worries the wound by thrashing violently.
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The ringing in his ears quickly stops and Belmont can see the absolute crap all he hit.
"Oh come on!" he exclaims before rushing into cover; reloading his pistol as he did so.
As he preps his Dwarven Clan Pistol for another shot, he focuses on the creatures once more, focusing on the one attacking Visna. He takes aim and pulls the trigger.
Pen's haste speeds her companions. Visna and Briar both savage the wounded troll, then Belmont delivers a critical hit to its heart to put it down for the count! The other troll howls with its many heads as it claws at Visna, but she blocks its attacks with her shield!
"Ha! I think hwaet would serve you better is to make fast your allegiances with greater warriors, rather than to let mere strength go to your heads!"
Pen's practicality prevails, preventing powerful projections, preferring precisely produced... fire.
Pen scorches the troll with flame as Briar lopes up, trips the massive multi-headed giant, and tears at its throats. Visna hacks and slashes with her axes as she piles on top the troll, grabbing it and bringing her weapons down again and again until the giant lies dead beneath her.
With nobody injured in the brief skirmish and Pen's spell still speeding your movements, you quickly rush into the ruins of the keep. Tarnished brass pipes poke through the walls in the immense central chamber. In the center of the floor is a shallow depression, once a ceremonial pool. Tattered silks cover some walls, and stained pillows are scattered about. Beyond a broken wall stands a complex helm with a cracked ship’s wheel; behind it, windows reveal a bleak view of the Dearth. The room smells faintly of ozone.
Stairs lead up to the top level of the fortress. The ceiling in this room towers eighty feet overhead. Tattered and torn tomes, scrolls, and papers cover much of the sloped wooden floor, along with broken glass, shattered furniture, and bizarre implements. A few books and documents remain on myriad shelves. In the center is a twisted heap of brassy metal that could once have been a telescope. Fused with the wreckage are huge, blackened bones, including a dragon’s skull. Past this debris is an open archway with two massive doors broken on the floor before it.
The ruler of the Harrowed Realm resides here: Sonnorae. Once a Varisian harrower, she now resembles a partially flayed woman whose skeleton is visible along portions of her arms, legs, and face. She wears a painful-looking harness of leather and iron, and has oversized fangs in her jaws. Her eyes grind like inverted gears of bone.
When she sees you, Sonnorae spreads her arms and rises up into the air. "What have you done to my home, interlopers? I can smell the stink of the harrow on your souls—have you come to my home to bring further ruin?"
She pauses, sniffs the air, then scowls. "You have brought a gift? A blood pear. Give it to me," she demands.
"Greater and lower beings would you make of us if you think a deeper ruin is within our power; this realm's horrors make of themselves all the ruin my heart may bear."
She holds aloft the pear, then gently lobs it to Sonnorae. "Still, I shall not deny you the shards of beauty that may still yet be found here."
"I am Visna Freydisdottir, a Piercer of Veils, a Wind-Burned Sailor on the Sea of Wounds, Custodian and Guest to the Enclosure of Wits. Is this world truly to your liking?"
Sonnorae catches the blood pear and consumes it rather messily, blood dribbling down her chin and body. But the offering seems to calm her down some, and she cocks her head at Visna' question. "Yes. Is it not to yours? There is joy to be found in pain and in suffering. The beings that helped to reshape this place opened my eyes to these truths."
She flashes a sinister grin, but that grin soon falters and is replaced by a morose grimace as she looks away, her eyes distant. "At least, that's what I tell myself. The bitter truth, though, is that I have grown to regret creating this place, both in its first incarnation and in its current state. I wanted a place where I could live forever, surrounded by the stories I loved so much. But immortality, it turns out, is overrated, especially when the ones you love turn against you. I thought of myself as a hero, but now I've lived long enough to have become the villain."
Sonnorae looks back at you again. "But you did not come here for my tale of woe. Why are you here?"
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"Molly... she weeps for her missing Marzalee. She knows that you could remake her as she once was." Briar looks over the painful looking alterations to Sonnorae.
"Perhaps you could find solace in offering succor to those of your realm rather than simply bathing in endless life yourself. What is eternity if it cannot be shared with those that mean most to you afterall?"
"One of the first wisdoms to be hard-earned is the surety that to live is to suffer. No sage can with honesty deny this. Yet this truth as wielded by some is a thing of fangs and falsehoods." She gestures to the family charm she bears, indicating the dark spot within the light. "The pain exists, yet it does not overwhelm; it is not at the heart of things. And even here," she indicates the light spot within the dark, "even in the midst of utter darkness, there is still a space for joy, for the pleasure of eating a beloved fruit."
"You work your will upon this place, my lady. Why not make of this place a wonder again?"
"Would that I could," Sonnorae grumbles. "To do that, I would need the Deck of Harrowed Tales[/i.] It has been lost to me for some time, but I sensed its presence recently. A powerful being came through here and destroyed this fortress, my home. He must have used the [i]Deck to open a conduit here. Find and destroy him, recover the artifact, and I'll do what I can to undo the damage to this place. I will give you this strange Harrow card that appeared in my possession recently, as well as allow you to use my scrying device to find the perpetrator."
Sonnorae offers you a card from the Deck of Destiny: The Tyrant. She also allows you to make use of the Lens of the Outreaching Eye.
Pen is quiet during the exchange, quietly amazed there was not a battle and that words have won the day. Once that became apparent, she rested her staff against her shoulder, pulled out her journal and started to take notes.
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Likewise, Belmont is very quiet.
He had no idea what in the hells he was staring at the creature before them. All he did was holster his clan pistol and ringed his thumbs into his belt. He did his best to show that he was calm and collective on the outside. Inside however, he was feeling like he could fill his trousers with fear.
He glances to Visna and Briarthorn as they managed to negotiate with this freak.
He started to wish he bought some salt and lemons.
Part 2, Chapter 4: Wolves' Den
Now that you have secured the Lens of the Outreaching Eye, you can use it to locate the Deck of Harrowed Tales. Attempting to scry on it only shows the dark interior of a lacquered box where the deck is being stored, which isn't be particularly helpful. However, discerning its location reveals that the deck is currently in a realm called the Wolves’ Den on a small island in the Abyss’s Midnight Isles.
This sudden knowledge has an unexpected side effect—the six arches in Harrowheart’s great hall flicker and hum, then the smoke within the arches clears to show the same landscape in each—a barren realm of rocky bluffs under a midnight sky, atop which looms a squat stone fortification. You can sense that somewhere beyond lie three more cards from the Deck of of Destiny—The Cyclone, The Keep, and The Waxworks. But there is a strange distortion and faint flickering in the image within the arches. Something in the Abyss is fighting against allowing a portal to manifest within this region—while the portal will still work, it’s likely to deposit you somewhere dangerous.
Before you step through the portal or otherwise travel to the Wolves’ Den, All-Seeing Hajeck reminds you that the Prince of Wolves might still have a considerable force of demons under his command. She suggests you treat your first trip into the Abyss as a scouting mission, then suggests contacting Usilket for reinforcements once you establish a beachhead on the other plane from which to stage your final attack.
***
The Forge: One of Harrowheart’s workshops transforms into a forge. The quality of the tools now found here increase that workshop’s item bonus to Crafting checks made within to a +2. When The Forge is first epitomized, 10,000 gp of raw materials suitable for use in crafting metal items manifests in the workshop. These raw materials can be used to create items or even simply harvested and sold for a profit, as they do not vanish if taken out of the Harrow Court. Once these raw materials are used or sold, they do not replenish. However, additional materials do manifest periodically within the workshop. Their appearances are linked to the party’s level, manifesting as soon as The Forge is epitomized or (if The Forge is already epitomized) as soon as the PCs attain the respective level.
17th-level: 13,500 gp of cold iron
18th-level: 18,000 gp of mithral
19th-level: 18,000 gp of adamantine
20th-level: 30,000 gp of orichalcum
***
The Midwife: A pleasant and very skilled healer moves into Harrowheart. Their presence bolsters the effect of long-term rest. When a PC uses this downtime activity in Harrowheart, they recover Hit Points equal to their Constitution modifier (minimum 1) multiplied by three times their level. They can also reduce the value of one condition of their choice from the following list: clumsy, drained, enfeebled, or stupefied, and gain a +2 item bonus to any saving throws they attempt against diseases they are currently afflicted by.
***
The Tyrant: When The Tyrant is epitomized, an immense blue dragon manifests in the Harrow Court. The dragon has no name, but gracefully accepts any the PCs offer them. The blue dragon is not hostile to the PCs, but their personality is tinged with arrogance and condescension. As with the other partially real simulacra of the Harrow Court, the dragon has no agency of their own and cannot take part in encounter mode play, but they can be called upon to aid with their skills or to cast (or teach) spells. Treat the dragon as a typical spellcasting ancient blue dragon for the purposes of its skill modifiers and what spells they can cast or teach, but one that also knows the legend lore ritual. A PC who impresses the dragon with their own imperious attitude (with a successful DC 35 Intimidation check) can convince the dragon to carry them to any location in the Harrow Court, once per successful check. The dragon keeps a lair in a large cavern below Harrowheart, where they spend their time counting their (illusory) hoard, sleeping, or plotting nefarious schemes they will never actually enact.
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"Y'know." Belmont starts as he finished buying more ammunition and reloading the two guns he had on his person; including the crossbow pistol. He then looked at the three ladies whom he had the fortune of meeting and smiled wickedly.
"So far, you three have been the most exciting people I've met. I mean-" He points to Briar. "You can can tear a giant in half then eat it in one sitting. he then points to Visna "You somehow managed to to talk down miss skinless back there!" he then turned to Pen and stared at her "And you're a the most socially barricaded woman who can fireball my face off I've ever met!"
He almost laughs before he sighed "Speaking on which, you guys seen any angry dwarves around town?"
Pen opened her mouth to respond, but instead just tightens her hands around her staff and answers "There are dwarves, but I am unaware of their emotions."
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Briar's tiny tail wags in pride at Belmont's acknowledgement of her particular set of skills.
"No' too bad for a glorified bodyguard ey? You hear about some of the old bonespeakers from my home. They were even more terrifying than me before they became speakers. I'm just hoping I can see you all to the end of this Harrowcourt nonsense."
She draws her weapon and examines the edge determining that it would certainly need a whetstone before they venture into the next plane again.
"You let me know if some angry runts is giving you problems Bell."
Visna chuckles, "It is not the greatest use to which my silver tongue has been put, but," A note of sorrow enters her expression, "in truth, her desires were laid more bare than her form. She but needed to believe they were still possible."
Once you are ready to proceed, you step through the misty portals in the Harrow Court. The world twists and distorts around you as the previously noted malicious energies interfere with the portal manifestation, depositing you in the Prince of Wolves' lair, but somewhere quite dangerous, indeed!
An overpowering stench of death and filth hangs in the scorching, sticky air. Dark metal sheets that appear to sweat blood line the walls, rising to heights lost in the darkness above, and below, the metal floor is covered by a hideous carpet of squirming, screeching maggots, each of which bears a humanoid face with fanged maws. Some maggots appear to be dead and serve the rest as meals, while others seem to constantly squeeze out of the rocks lining the walls above, as if burrowing free from thick mud to rain down into the pit below.
The swarming maggots immediately squirm into a biting frenzy!
Visna keeps her boasts, challenges, and sagas to herself as she hews her way into the mass of maggots. It is a good time to have her mouth tightly closed.