Cultist Interrogation

Previously we successfully took prisoner, one cultist from the pink swamp. It's about time we asked them some questions.

Recap

The session opened with a long-awaited breakthrough: Mel, who speaks Draconic, finally translated a letter found inside the belly of a sea serpent — a message in a bottle from one S'shar of the Tidefang, captain of the lizardfolk's largest vessel. The letter was a love note to Kessara, the daughter of the camp, written in broken but deeply tender prose. S'shar spoke of the sea's cruelty, of deep-beasts that crawl inside the mind and whisper without words, and of the desperate hope of returning home to hatch a clutch together. The party delivered the letter to Kessara, who received it with alarm — the full moon had come and gone several times since S'shar's departure. She shared grim stories of sailors who had stiffened mid-voyage and hurled themselves into the sea, returning — if they returned at all — with their minds hollowed out.

Aldric asked Kessara about the cult's presence. She explained that the lizardfolk had only seen cultists in passing. One night the cultists had come to camp offering work — they needed labor for crystal mining. But the swamp is sacred ground, and the lizardfolk refused. The cultists answered with violence. After that, only scouts were spotted on the edges of the territory.

The party then turned their attention to a cultist locked in the brig of the beached ship — a man who appeared human, sitting slumped against the wall with his head on his knees.

Mel begins the interrogation

Mel went in first, carrying water and food as a neutral party with no connection to the original kidnapping. The cultist introduced a philosophy the party would hear repeated like a mantra: everything is where it is meant to be. He spoke of purpose — a cosmic contentment the cult wished to bring to all living things. When Mel admitted she had come on the expedition searching for purpose herself, the cultist studied her, and for a single flash his eyes looked wrong, though the moment passed too quickly to read. He encouraged her to keep her mind and spirit open, and as she left, he asked her name. She gave it. His was Silas. As Mel departed, he murmured something quietly in Sylvan — too soft for her to catch.

Kouzlo and Shadow follow

Shadow melted into the darkness beside Silas's cell while Kouzlo sat before their captive. Kouzlo sensed no magical energy in the air — from everything he could tell, Silas was simply a person. But when Shadow spoke from the shadows and startled him, Silas's eyes shimmered a vivid, unmistakable red — a sign the party would come to recognize later — before fading just as quickly. Shadow leaned on intimidation; Silas was unmoved. The party began to realize that death held no power over him. He viewed himself — and seemingly all cultists — as disposable vessels for something larger.

What finally cracked Silas open was the promise of spreading the message. Kouzlo conjured a glowing recreation of the cult's star symbol using Prestidigitation, and Silas reached out almost reverently, caressing each eye on the sigil. As he touched them, his voice dropped to something between reverence and dread:

"Each Eye is a truth. Each eye is a different ending, each worse than the last."

He whispered over each eye in turn, describing what lay behind them:

"It does not just watch the world — it chooses it. It shapes the world around them to their fitting, and not to yours."

"Too many eyes to lie. Too many mouths to agree — they argue while they chew, none of them agreeing on what to eat. It remembers being everyone and no one all at once."

"A storm as tall as a mountain, with a face carved from the thunderheads. Run, if you like… the horizon belongs to it. Its wings create winds that lift cities, with a voice that splits skies."

"A beast larger than castles, than cities, than states. Drifting where there is no ground. Its jaws open into a darkness that does not end. Its eye, wide and unblinking, seeing through worlds like a window."

And then his gaze settled on the center eye. His mannerisms shifted. He stared at it for a long moment before looking up at Shadow and Kouzlo.

"This one… this one is older than the rest. Older than all. This saw everything be made."

Kouzlo pressed for more, and he named it plainly — "Do you not know? Yes this is the eye of the savior of this world. This is the eldor of the Aboleths" — a being meant to bring about what the cult calls the unification. The other eyes, he warned, are not Aboleths. Whatever else is coming is something different entirely, and that is precisely why he urged everyone the party sent his way to open their minds and accept what was inevitable.

When Kouzlo asked who Silas was before this existence, the mask slipped. Silas paused, visibly straining to remember his own past — and failed. Whatever he had been before, the cult or the Aboleth had taken it from him.

Aldric and Helena's attempt

The Paladin and the Mystic came in next, robed in protections. Helena cast Protection from Good and Evil on them both, then attempted to read Silas's thoughts with her pendant. She hit a locked door at the surface — pushed past it into a layer of missionary zeal, the drive to spread the purpose — then struck a second barrier, something deeply unnatural. When she pushed again, something pushed back. Silas's eyes flared red, and a voice rumbled through Helena's mind with a deep laugh:

"You have been wise to protect yourself. But how long can these protections last?"

It was the Aboleth, working Silas's mouth like a thing that had long since learned to puppet flesh — and enjoyed the fit.

Aldric cast Compelled Duel, forcing Silas's attention onto him and loosening the Aboleth's grip on Helena just enough for her to stumble through into Silas's deeper memories. What she found came in flashes: a childhood, a family, a major city, manual labor. Then — arriving by boat at the very site where camp now stands, when the land was completely empty, carrying a rucksack of tools alongside a group of workers. Sawing through a tree. Then nothing. The emotional state underlying it all was pure, abject fear.

Regrouping

Shadow later pulled Foreman Smith aside. Smith didn't recognize Silas, but confirmed that previous expeditions — predating N.O.D.E. entirely — had attempted to establish a camp at this very location. They were never told what happened to those groups. When Smith's people arrived, the site was abandoned, supplies left behind, people simply gone. The implication hung heavy: Silas may have been one of those earlier settlers, claimed by the Aboleth long before the current party ever set foot on this peninsula.

For the final confrontation, the whole party gathered before Silas. Aldric cast Zone of Truth, and Silas submitted willingly. Helena attempted Fast Friends, but the spell hit a wall — Silas was already under a charm effect, bound by a magic unlike anything Helena had ever encountered. Whether all cultists share this bond or Silas is a special case remained unclear, but the Aboleth's hold on him was absolute.

Now speaking more openly — whether as Silas or as the Aboleth's mouthpiece — the prisoner confirmed that the subterranian fortress houses the bulk of the cult's forces, making final preparations for the unification. When Kouzlo addressed the Aboleth directly and asked if it resided there, the creature responded with chilling casualness: it could be there if they wished to meet, but it didn't normally dwell in the fortress. The party recalled the large body of water beside the structure — an ongoing waterway connection, a highway for a creature that lives in the deep.

Aldric produced a crystal fragment. The Aboleth explained that the crystals came from a fallen star, and that star came from the Aboleth's home. The cult had been running experiments — feeding the crystals different inputs like lives and magic, coaxing out different abilities depending on the environment. The red stone tower and its drawing, Aldric was told, was an invitation — the Aboleth wanted the party's strength in its ranks.

Kouzlo asked whether the monstrosity they'd encountered in the coral forest waters was the Aboleth itself. The answer was chilling: "It is one of us, but we are many. You've seen one of my brothers — and slain one as well. An unforgivable act."

When the party accused the Aboleth of being deliberately vague while claiming to fear nothing, it replied with something between amusement and hunger: "I enjoy playing with my food."

The time, it said, was nigh.