Enola Yarn – blogpost 20

“WHERE IS VIOLENCE?” Nylas asks angrily. Turbulence lies bloodied on the floor, attacked by the will-o-whisps. I want to cast fireball, but Nylas counterspells it and casts hailstorm! As if that damage wasn’t enough, a will-o-whisp flies through me and knocks me out.

From Valentines’ point of view

I see Nylas flee – what an idiot, I can simply kill him with a well-aimed fireball. So, that’s what I do. Nylas crumbles to ashes as the fireball reaches him. I walk back to my sister. What happened?! “Do something!” I yell to Zeph. Zeph sticks his flute down Enolas’ throat and starts to give her flute-to-mouth to get some air into her lungs. She really looks bad – but not as bad as the time she drank too much and woke up the next morning with her hair all messed up… Okay, Valentine, focus! The flute-to-mouth doesn’t help at all, and the will-o-whisps are still trying to kill her. We cannot heal her, because of the slaad earlier. I think about what the headmistress told us – Enola cannot be healed, and if she dies, she will turn into a slaad. We have to protect her! As the will-o-whisps are defeated, I bring Enola to Zephs’ room and immediately close the door to run to the headmistress. I HAVE TO RESCUE ENOLA! NOTHING WILL STAND IN MY WAY! 

In the office, I demand the headmistress to help Enola. At first, she is reluctant, so I try to win her over. However, she notices that I use magic to do that, and it has no effect. Luckily enough, she is quite impressed by my determination and says she can help me with a spell scroll of greater restoration, but that I owe her big time. I don’t care what I have to do, as long as Enola comes back to life. I have to answer a question though: what color slaad will Enola turn into, green or red? I don’t know the answer… Shit. I wish I had listened to the headmistress when we killed the slaad earlier. I take a gamble, and say: ‘green’. “That is correct.” she gives me the spell scroll. I thank the headmistress for the scroll and walk out of the room. Before I can open the door, she tells me: “I own you now…” I run back to the room and cast the spell. To my greatest relief, the purple veins that Enola had before I left vanish. Enola gasps for air and opens her eyes a minute later.

Back to Enola

I wake with a shock. Valentines’ face hovers over me, she looks worried. “What happened? What did you do? Did I get in?” “You’ve been knocked out for three years!” Valentine replies. “NO?! Really?!” I am scared until I focus more on her face and see a smile. Zeph and Farryn leave the room, so we can be alone. Valentine tells me she got a spell scroll from somewhere to save me, and that I was turning into a slaad. How awful!

After a while, Zeph enters the room. He tells us he went to the headmistress and saw a lot of puppets in her room. He conjures an illusion of the puppet – it looks like Violence, and more like a voodoo doll than just a puppet. Zeph continues that there was a shelf with puppets on it, he did not see himself, but Cephalossk apparently had one, and that one had fallen on the ground. Weird… This is really something to remember. As I am taking note of everything Zeph is telling us, Valentine and Zeph discuss what we’re going to do next. Farryn is playing chess at the moment, so they want to find something cool to do to rub in his face when he gets back. We decide to get the zombie out of Nylas’ room.

We open the door and see the giant ogre-zombie in the corner. We trap it with a spell of difficult terrain, I cast sickening radiance that should have effect for a while. Valentine shoots an Eldridge blast, and I a firebolt before I close the door to let the zombie die from the radiance. Suddenly, I smell apple pie. How odd – the zombie stinks like hell, and now the smell has gone. We hear some stumbling and duck down as the zombie tries to hit down the door. “I’ll let him sit there for a minute!” says Valentine, casting hold monster. Through the door, the difficult terrain transforms into a flowery meadow. A couple of seconds later, it is gone and the room smells like apple pie again. After a minute, the zombie is dead. Valentine wants to open the door, but cannot, because the zombie is blocking the door. She casts thaumaturgy, and the door flies open. However, Zeph flew in first – he gets covered in meat and blood: the door crushed the zombie-head from the power of the spell. Valentine cleans him off.

After all, the mess is removed from Zeph, Valentine and I investigate the room. Between the zombies’ ribs, we find a book. I find some other insignificant stuff, and a drawer filled with hair. Ew. I think he shaved his head and left the hairs in here instead of throwing them out. Zeph still feels dirty from the zombie-spats and wants to go to the shower – Valentine and I choose to find Farryn.

In the common room, we find him. He has just won a game of dragon chess and is now busy making instruments. As we tell him about the zombie, Farryns’ eyes grow bigger. He feels screwed over because we left him out of this little adventure and goes out of his way to investigate the room for himself. Valentine and I wait for him and read what is in the zombie book: it is a spellbook. We are still busy reading when Farryn and Zeph come back.

Zeph has some new info: he couldn’t get more info from Hallaster, but he knows who is the new student here: Valentine. She defeated Nylas, so she is the new student. I think it is logical she got in, but I still feel disappointed that I – again – couldn’t step up to the plate to show my skills. As we go over the event again, and me dying in Zephs’ room, we arrive at the spell scroll Valentine used to save my life: greater restoration. “How did you get that spell scroll?” asks Farryn slyly. “I had it in my pocket,” Valentine replies evasively, “I forgot I had it.” She continues: “This is not the way to get your room Enola, be happy that you did not have to kill someone. You’ll get there.” I’m not mad at Valentine. I am happy to be alive, and Valentine did kill Nylas and save me. She deserves it. “Shit… there is a dead zombie in my room….” mumbles Valentine.

Via the photo gallery of all students, we walk to the area where the Bone Devil should reside. Valentine sees a picture of herself – her real self. She tries to hide the picture, but we all can see it. She grabs the picture and turns it around. However, a rune activates. “Oh fuck.” she says. The rune aims for me. Luckily, as it reaches me, I feel better than I did before. I feel more agile and free than before, and my magic feels somewhat stronger. Zeph tries to take his picture from the wall as well, but that also activates a rune, and two beams of light shoot towards Valentine and again, me. Nothing happens, and we decide to continue our way. We reach another room, where I knock on the door. The knock is really loud and the door just opens itself out of nowhere. I realize I am infused with some magic from that rune and I can cast knock without effort. We find a big iron cage with an open door and a circle with weird symbols next to it. It looks like a transportation circle to me, with in the middle a giant statue of Spite. One: what kind of cage is this? Two: what does this statue mean? Three: what if this is the real Spite? I know this circle is a thaumaturgic one. Oh, does this mean Spite cheated in his task with the three statues? All kinds of questions go through my head. We must not confront Spite: I think he is far more powerful than we first realized. We need to be very careful. As I stand there, nailed to the floor, figuring out what this all must mean, Farryn is trying to get through the circle by pushing Grond into the circle. Nothing happens, but we know we must prevent this magic: if Spite is really dangerous, we cannot let this magic continue to exist here. I try to erase the circle with mage hand. When the hand faded a piece of the circle, the gold statue screeches! The gold vanishes and a Wyvern takes its place. Oh no! What have we done?! I am standing quite close to the creature, so after a couple of attacks, I am knocked out. Zeph heals me, and I can stand up again and continue to fight. However, something is not really adding up. I see Farryn with the staff of leadership, and Valentine and Zeph obeying his needs. After the fight, Farryn tells me the Wyvern is a ‘true polymorph’ – something I already knew – whereafter Valentine responds: “Yes, master, very insightful.” I look accusingly at Farryn, who responds apologetically: “I think the rod of rulership did more than I intended…” To break the spell, I give Valentine and Zeph a smack in the face.

We’re now REALLY headed for the Bone Devil. As we walk through a room, we see a shield guardian and a little girl. She is quite feisty I can tell because she says: “Who in the nine hells are you?” 

“I’m Valentine,” Valentine replies, still disguised as Violence. The girl looks very fancy with a symbol on her chest. She introduces herself as Skrianna Shadowdusk. Farryn tries to make conversation, but Skrianna silences him by telling him that he looks like a do-nothing – he did not recognize the symbol on her chest, one that is of her family, one of the oldest families still to exist. Skrianna doesn’t want to help us with battling the bone devil, unfortunately, but she lets us pass. We then walk through a prison, with many Goblins in its cells. Zeph asks them why they’re here, but they don’t know Hallasters’ reasons for putting them there. I can tell they’re afraid.

A door with red symbols indicates we’re almost there. We walk in and find ourselves in a room with a large tapestry depicting fighting demons and devils. A bloody body lies before us. I investigate the body and see a large hole in its back. This must be Yarek – killed by his own creation. There are blood traces to the wall; we follow them, but not before Farryn sets fire to the tapestry. The wall is an illusion, and we go through it. We again see blood traces, but now also handprints: Yarek must have crawled back to safety but died while doing it. In the adjacent room, we find more traces and a pentagram in the middle of the room. After a short minute, Zeph whispers: “There it is!” We all look up and see the nasty bone devil crouching on the ceiling. “What are you doing here?” asks the Bone Devil. “We are here to deal with you!” It walks around us and its tail prevents us from going anywhere. “Are we having fun…?”

Valentine casts a wall of light but gets picked up and then falls to the ground. I am horrified. The Bone Devil indicates it wants to leave here, but not before he kills Skrianna. Apparently, that is the deal he made with Yarek. “The only way to go back to hell is if you lose your life here,” Valentine says to him. “That is not the way to go. It would be too much of a shame. I have to go my way.” At that point, Valentine attacks again. I decide to animate the big statue that rides a snake in the corner. Suddenly, everything happens at once: we attack, and for some reason, the Bone Devil is paralyzed. We deal a lot of damage, and the animated statue is crushing it – no pun intended. Eventually, the animated statue kills the Bone Devil, but I still cast my magic missiles on it, just to be sure it is really gone. The Devil collapses, and Valentine and I wipe the summoning pentagram off the ground with mage hand and prestidigitation. 

The moment we’re done cleaning, Hallaster appears. He walks up to the Devil, pokes his staff into his remains, and says: “Well done, better than expected. You even rejected his deal…” 

“Yarek did not do so well, nice job pupils. You have used your freedom of movement very smartly.” He looks at us. 

Smiling, he continues: “Very well… You’ve done what we’ve expected and asked from you. Now, also the last of you, Enola, has admittance to the school.” I cannot believe what I’m hearing. I GOT IN! REALLY?! YES, FINALLY! I am so proud of myself. I choke down some tears of joy and listen to what else Hallaster has to say. 

“Farryn, you can move freely through the school, but you won’t get any schooling here.”

“You don’t have the tomen of clear thoughts, so I don’t think I’ll find anything here,” Farryn replies.

“If you search for it, you won’t find it,” Hallaster smirks. “We can finally do conjuration magic again now the devil has gone. Well done.”

The aftermath

We take a short rest in the pre-devil area to catch our breath. Pffff, that was really stressful… Some of us were grabbed by the Devil by his tail and almost got skewered. We try to find our way back again and find a room with a mirror. On the door, symbols are protecting the room from the devil. Valentine tries to open the portal in the mirror by using a book. She opens it, and the portal opens. However, the book turns to ashes. She is shocked. She looks at the pile of dust in her hands with utter horror on her face. I deduce that the book she was holding was her own spellbook filled with rituals. She was learning a spell from it: commune – but I don’t know how she intends to put that to use. She was almost done learning it, and now she cannot finish it. She turns around and sprints for the door. She doesn’t say anything, but I feel she is headed for the library, as that is the only place where she can find spells right now. I hear a ‘poof’ and she is gone.

We walk up to the library and find Valentine already searching for her spell in many books. Books on the floor, books on the table, books in her hand: she really made a mess of things. However, she is reading at the moment, so that must mean she found what she was looking for. I search in the pile of books she threw on the ground for a spell that might catch my interest. I find one: chromatic orb. I decide to first finish studying my first spell and then learn this one too. We make a plan for the rest of the night. We decide to go to our rooms, then meet up for dinner, and after study somewhat more and go to bed. Tomorrow, we’ll do a class and go find the Nothic, because he caught our interest earlier.

To get to our rooms, we have to pass the dining hall. Skrianna and her crew are sitting there at the moment. Valentine says to her: “Quick question: why does the Bone Devil what you dead?” She chews and swallows before she answers: “I knew Yarek did not like me at all, it is good that it did not work.”

“Oh yeah, we could not handle it – he is now walking around in the school,” Valentine says. I don’t want to ruin her joke, so I keep my mouth shut. Skrianna looks very frightened and scouts around the room. The shield guardian comes closer. “That’s most unfortunate…” she exclaims. “Anyways, we’re going to our rooms, catch you later,” Valentine says airily. “Okay… Bye….” We leave Skrianna in a very worried mood.

I walk to Yareks’ room. It is now mine. It is not close to Zeph and Valentines’ room, but I don’t mind at all. I am near Violence and Turbulence, which I kind of like. I walk past the picture room, and I see a picture of myself there. I AM THERE! It is a weird picture of me, but I’m HERE!

I open the door to my room and find a couple of stuff that belongs to Yarek. I leave a note for the servants to clean out the room. After looking around my new room for one last time and sucking in the air in the room with much pride, I close the door to go to dinner. I find Elan and Skrianna talking, but no one else. Zeph, Farryn, and Valentine must still be in their rooms. I feel the situation is pretty tense around here, but they’ve already seen me.

“Hey, good to see you, come and have dinner,” Elan says as he sees me. I sit next to him, not looking at Skrianna. As I sit down, they continue their conversation, but in a different language. Luckily, I can understand some of it. They are doing this on purpose, so I try to listen in but make sure they don’t notice. They are planning on doing something bad to Spite, Dumara, and ‘the new students’. I choke on my food and start coughing. “Oh be careful Enola, here, take a sip of water!” says Elan, as he hands me my cup. I cough a couple of times and try to smile unknowingly. As I start eating again, he continues in a different tone of voice. I am scared: they cannot know I’m listening… I hear ‘oni’ and ‘statues of Hallaster’. I try to make conversation to reduce the tension in the room: “Oh hey, this food is really nice.. who made this?” Skrianna reacts very snobby and scoffs. Elan says comforting: “Yeah, those devils can cook!”o

“Oh, hey cool. I did not know they cook dinner… Hey… Umm… Where is my party at?” 

“You seem tense. just eat something Enola. You too, Skrianna.” Elan rises and says: “Have a nice evening.” he walks away. Skrianna stays for a second, then stands up as well, and leaves without saying anything.

I am alone, alone with my thoughts, until the party arrives. They take a seat and eat, and during dinner, I tell them what I’ve just heard. An Oni is an ogre mage. Zeph knows a lot about it: it is a creature of darkness and comes at night and eats people. They are pretending to be humans and are drawn to magic. We all think this must have something to do with Spite and Dumara, because of the tip of Cephalossk.

Valentine and I go to the library to study. I’m totally fried: I’ve learned all the spells I wanted to learn: wall of force and chromatic orb. We discuss Dumara for while, but Valentine is not really focussing on the conversation, so I leave it. I the middle of our study session, the door of the library opens, and spooky music sounds in the room. After a short while, we hear laughter, and Farryn and Zeph reveal themselves. They were trying to scare us. They quickly tell us about their evening. They found a secret passage where Spite and Dumara were, and that Spite did not really care they were there. It could maybe be a trap? In that secret passage, they found many Hallaster-statues there as well. Zeph and Farryn went upstairs as well – as in a level higher in Undermountain – they saw Wrights, a Minotaur skeleton, and a Flesh golem that were guarding something. But: long story short: we can apparently leave the academy. After the conversation, Farryn starts crafting loudly. Zeph casts silence to let us study without Faryrn disturbing us. At midnight, we’re all tired and go to bed.

My room is empty now, and all mine. Satisfied with a great day, I go to bed.