Enola Yarn – blogpost 44

In the pantry, we discuss our ideas. Farryn would really like to meet Emberosa but knows it is kind of dangerous. Calyx will wildshape, Valentine will disguise herself as the head hobgoblin Doomcrown, and will take Farryn with her as an interested party. I will be Farryns’ apprentice, and Smokey will be ‘Doomcrowns” prisoner. Our plan ‘B’ will be to use the rod of rulership, but we hope it doesn’t get to that point, of course.
When Valentine transforms into Doomcrown, she asks Flumph: “Hey Flumph, what is the relation between Emberosa and Doomcrown exactly?”
“Emberosa is the boss.”
“And who is the boss of Emberosa?”
“Yes. Hallaster.”
Valentine transforms into Hallaster. “Maybe that is a bit too obvious…” I say.
“I can impersonate Hallasters’ voice!” says Farryn, and does an impression.
It is not that good, but I don’t have the guts to tell him that. Luckily, the others thank him but say that Doomcrown is still the best idea.

“Hey Flumph, isn’t there a weapon that we can use?” asks Valentine.
“Um, yes, there is a mighty weapon in a room on this level.”
“Where is the key?”
“The door to the room opens with six keys.”
“How do we find more keys?”
“Doomcrown only found one key, and found the room – it has a lightning bolt on the door.”

Okay, we decide to go to Emberosa and hopefully get more info about the keys.
We walk into the room and see a ginormous construct on the floor, and a fire giant working on it. That must be Emberosa.
Valentine greets Emberosa, but I can see, the giant doesn’t understand her at all.
Thanks to the helmet of comprehending languages, I can understand what Emberosa says to Valentine: “What are you doing here?”
“To show this construct,” says Valentine, kneeling before the giant.
“Rossk! New metal!” says Emberosa, pointing at Grond.
I try to catch Valentines’ eyes, and feel her communicating with me mentally: “WHAT?”
“The new metal is GROND,” I respond.
I signal to Farryn that we need to do something.
Together we move to protect Grond, but when Emberosa notices, she says: ‘Get rid of Doomcrown and his allies. I’m done with them!”
The Smoke Mephits in the room close in aggressively. I cast crown of stars and shoot one at a Mephit: it explodes. However, it is apparently doing something to Valentine, because she runs off. After a couple of attacks, the Mephits are gone, and only Emberosa is left. Then, I see Emberosas’ facial expression, she seems to be in a lot of pain: she touches her head in agony and collapses, knocked out. That must be Valentines doing.

For a second, it is quiet in the room. The Mephits are all exploded, another fire giant that came into the room lies dead on the floor, and Emberosa has just been knocked out. I sigh, but from the corner of my eye, I see Valentine shooting an eldridge blast at someone. I hear Calyx scream in pain. Did she… did she attack Calyx?! No… Shit…

I see Calyx turn himself around and walk towards Valentine. He waves his arms and encaptures Valentine inside a water elemental. I try to counterspell his elemental, but it isn’t any use.
Valentine reacts with hellish rebuke on Calyx, trying to make him remove the water elemental.
I catch Farryns’ eye: we both do not understand why this is happening. Well, I kind of understand, because of the pages I saw in Valentines’ book, but I don’t get WHY she is acting NOW.

Valentine screams in pain when Farryn attacks with his magic. Even Grond tries to protect Calyx by throwing Farryns’ dodecahedron against Valentine and electrocuting her.
I walk towards Valentine and use misty step to help her out of the water elemental.
“STOP!” I scream at the party.
From a distance, I hear Smokey say: “Noooo, this is way too much fun and interesting,” apparently, Smokey has left the party to chase his interests in the back of the room. “Look guys, this skull is making ticking noises!”
Ugh, I cannot focus on Smokey right now… Ho, STOP!
I counterspell a fireball cast by Valentine.
“You would WARN ME… BEFORE you would act!” I hiss.
“He is weak! We can get him! Just like we discussed!”
This is what I was afraid of… Farryns’ eyes find mine again, filled with betrayal. This wasn’t what I wanted.
I just wanted to protect Valentine, and at the same time, make sure she wouldn’t act irrationally.
“Get out Calyx! GET THE FUCK OUT of here!” I yell.
I’m ready to leave the party together with Valentine now, go back to the Academy or Waterdeep, just to protect others from my sister. I cannot leave her.

Then, Calyx throws a vial at Valentine and it explodes in her face. He commands his water elemental to hold her down, and I can see she is knocked out.
“Stop it, stop it! STOP IT!” I scream at the top of my lungs.
“YOU KNEW!” shouts Farryn angrily at me. He throws acid on Valentine.
That was totally unnecessary! She has been knocked out already, and now she is DYING! Next to me, I also hear a tiny squeak: Flumph is also dying from the acid. Poor Flumph.
Calyx commands Farryn to stop as well. I see my chance to stabilize Valentine and do so.
I gather all my power and knowledge, knowing this might be the last crucial second to save her life. With a jolt, I feel my magic bringing her back to life: she opens her eyes and comes to.
Next to me, Smokey meddles in the drama: “What is going on? Oh, Valentine, take a potion!” he pours a potion of healing into her mouth.
However, Valentine is still covered in acid and faints again from the horrible acid burning her flesh.
“Okay, Enola, what is going on?” asks Calyx. “If you tell us, I can bring her back.”
I agree, watch Farryn clean up the acid, and Calyx stabilizes my little sister.

I explain everything. I tell them about the discussion I’ve had with Valentine about her book. She wrote things like: “Calyx”, “bad healer”, “tiny evil”, “untrustworthy”.
“I told her not to do anything rash or irrational, and to warn me before she would act, but she didn’t.”
After my story, Calyx takes his vial and heals Valentine completely. He orders his water elemental to step back, and Farryn puts some shackles on Valentine to make sure she doesn’t attack when she comes to.

Valentine wakes up.
“Calyx healed you just now,” says Farryn irritably.
“That’s a first…” says Valentine unthankfully.
“Valentine, I understand your mistrust. I have been less nice to you than everyone else… But that you do this, surprises me. You were and will remain, one of the Never Evers. I see you and myself as party members.
I want to give you a second chance, but you have to explain NOW what has been going on.”
“You’re suddenly here OUT OF NOTHING when we lost Zeph, you heal others but NOT me; you just HATE me. You change plans, you change sides, you’re NOT trustworthy and I believe you have a secondary agenda.”
I can see she truly, in her heart, believes this, and it hurts me as well to see her so emotional.
“Valentine, I cannot always see that you’re hurting, because you always look like your sister.”
“You’ve hurt me with your vines.”
“You didn’t listen.”
“You set everyone up AGAINST ME!”
“You don’t see me as a party member.. Do you?” asks Calyx disappointingly.
He backs off, and Valentine sits in a corner with her back against the construct.
“Um, I like you, Valentine,” says Smokey. “You cannot attack others, but I still like you. Can’t we all get along? Look what I found! It was ticking!”
We all look at Smokey in terror – most of the time, ticking things, aren’t good in this dungeon. “Oh, no, it doesn’t tick anymore..” Smokey runs back.

Farryn continues the conversation: “We’ve told you we find you hard to trust, Valentine… We needed to communicate more, but you still attacked others.
Then, Enola always protected you, but you’re STILL attacking other creatures. I don’t see how we can get along…”
“I didn’t hurt you, Farryn.”
“An attack on Calyx, is an attack on the party, on your sister as well,” Farryn says sternly.
“I’ve helped you guys!”
“I’ve helped you too,” Farryn responds. “If you have a fundamental problem with Calyx, and cannot solve it, we have a big problem.”
I feel very uncomfortable.
“But… you’re going to untie me, right?” Valentine prompts with her loveliest smile.
I counterspell her suggestion and say to her: “That is NOT okay. I’m not falling for it.”
“Untie her,” says Calyx. “Let her attack me.”
“I don’t want that, Calyx,” says Farryn.
Farryn gets the spider statue of Lolth and presses it on Valentines’skin.
What the fuck is he doing? That thing is CURSED.
Then, Valentine starts eating rubble from the ground.
“Oh, what? I just wanted to paralyze her,” says Farryn confused.
Calyx casts greater restoration on Valentine, and she stops eating rubble. She sighs: “It is finally off!”
I hear a ‘toink’ sound, and see a helmet fall off of Valentines’ head. I just couldn’t see it because of her disguise.
Valentine is relieved, and even shows her true self! The helmet of protection that we found a couple of days ago, was protecting her, but she didn’t trust anyone.
“I’M SO SORRY! I got weird thoughts… Please don’t be mad at Enola, she is not really good with words.”
Farryn removes the dimensional shackles. Valentine takes my form again but leaves her own eyes and hair color.
“Sorry, Calyx. I want to see you as a party member. I’ve only known you with the helmet on.”
“Oh, yeah. You couldn’t help yourself…” I say.

Calyx walks up to Valentine with his hand outstretched. He shakes her hand: “Hi, I’m Calyx. Nice to meet you.”
“Hi, I’m Valentine.”
“Hopefully we can help each other through this dungeon.”
Then, Valentine walks up to me and hugs me. “Sorry for everything.”