Sessions 95 & 96 - The Theatre of Eternal Masques

Wed 15th & 29th September 2025

In-game timeline: Alturiak 14 - ??? (In the Feywild)

Our "Heroes" stare up at the nearby hill, with a storm raging upon it. Only three of them to face whatever the storm may throw at them.

The Gale Knight gives them some information, but only some of it sinks in. The important bits are obvious - he can part the storm to reveal the Altar, but only for a short amount of time; The Altar must be hit by magic in some way, enough to charge it, 10 times in this period, so that it can release the Song of Power for the Gale Knight to play into the Lyrica Noctis; And there will be some form of Storm Fiends trying to stop them.

The three remaining "Heroes" miss Alwaith - perhaps for the first time - as his Eldritch Blast would no doubt have proved very useful in this situation. But they come up with a plan…

And, again perhaps for the first time, they actually execute the plan. With Sanada's bare fists being magical, and Solveig being able to imbue his animal summons with magical attacks, they had some magical firepower available to charge the Altar. Faith's defensive capabilities would perhaps hold off the Storm Spirits long enough for their attacks to be effective.

They instructed the Gale Knight to hold back the storm.

Sanada is unsurprisingly the first to get to the Altar. Her first attacks demonstrate the priorities of the Storm Spirits - they are able to take the damage intended for the Altar! And not only this, but more Spirits join them from the swirling storm each round. Luckily, they are quite weak, so if enough can be taken down, then perhaps some attacks may get through to the Altar - but will there be enough to charge it in the time available?

Teamwork saves the day here, along with some luck. Solveig is fortunate that his animal summoning gives him some war horses. Faith puts his Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon to good use in taking down the Storm Spirits, or distracting them enough to enable Sanada's multiple attacks to get through to the Altar.

It is close, but they manage it with seconds to spare. Enough magical attacks get through to charge the Altar, and it majestically opens up to reveal the Song of Power before the storm reforms around it. The Song floats to the Gale Knight who, true to his word, sings the Song to our Heroes, as they store the tune in the Lyrica Noctis, to help them in their Quest.

Impressed at their fortitude, tenacity and teamwork, the Gale Knight reunites the group with Alwaith, and allows them to rest fully before they attempt to move on within the Feywild to gather another Song of Power…

After a good "night's" (there isn't much of a distinction between day and night in the Fey Realm) sleep, the group discuss where to head next, and settle on trying to gather the Aria of the Trickster from The Harlequin, which, if obtained, would prevent any uses of Legendary Actions.

Solveig wets his lips and attempts to play the appropriate tune to take them to the Theatre of Eternal Masques. A portal opens and they step through…

And find themselves in a deep forest. There is the sound of singing and gaiety from one direction so, with no other clues, they head towards it. They shortly come upon a group of small, woodland fey creatures - faeries, pixies and the like, partying in a clearing. Unsure of whether this is the Theatre they search for, Solveig boldly steps forward and greets the creatures.

A few of the pixies fly over, curious, and enquire as to his name. The druid, nervous about sharing too much, and having some knowledge about the power of names, decides to invent a nickname for himself and pass this on to the pixies rather than his full name. This seems to satisfy them and they fly off, along with the other merry-making fae, who all disappear from the clearing in different directions, leaving our "Heroes" in a quiet clearing in a deep forest.

Thinking that they probably have come to the wrong place, they decide to try again with the ocarina. Another portal opens. They step through.

This time they find themselves in an obvious backstage corridor of a theatre - this is more like the place they are looking for!

The corridor is scattered with theatrical props, costumes and the like, and behind a thick curtain at one end a play seems to be being acted out. At the other end of the corridor are three portals, with a banner implying that they need to head through one of these portals, implying that the wrong choice will end in failure for any that make it. After some "let's just pick one" discussion, they decide to look around a little.

Alwaith and Sanada check out the play by peeking through the curtain. There is an enraptured audience and a group of fey players on stage. Without warning, Sanada uses her shadow step ability to disappear to the other side of the stage, which is in darkness. It also seems empty of anything particularly useful. She decides to return.

Unfortunately Alwaith has no idea where she is. Not only that, the corridor that the rest of the party are in is well-lit, meaning Sanada cannot use her ability to return. She considers interrupting the play to cross the stage, but disturbing the performance seems like a Very Bad Idea. In the end, after managing to get Alwaith's attention, but them not considering just extinguishing some of the lights on that side, she casts Darkness in their corridor in order to shadow step back again, and then dispel the darkness. Luckily she manages this without attracting the attention of the actors on stage.

Still no clue as to which portal to choose, they look around. Alwaith focusses on the play itself, trying to follow the plot of the performance. Sanada finds a script lying around, and it seems to be the script of the play being performed. Between them, they ascertain the story and, as they hoped, it seemed to indicate the story of someone who was lost but found their way by entering an archway which had a lot of similarities to one of the portals. And so they chose to risk all by all stepping through that one…

Finding themselves in at the end of a hall with three doorways into dressing rooms, each guarded by a different guardian. A plaque seemed to indicate that they need to choose the correct door to pass through, and the only hints being that they can ask but four questions, each to only one of the guardians, only two of whom talk the truth, and none of them respond unless talking to their likeness.

Our "Heroes" are not stupid, despite much evidence to the contrary. They work out that they need to don an appropriate mask in order to get a response from a particular guardian. Sanada proves to be the brains, and she works out the best questions to ask in order to determine which guardian is the liar, and which door leads to The Harlequin's dressing room. Hoping they got this all correct, they step through the appropriate door…

And find themselves in a dressing room, with not one Harlequin before them, but THREE! All identical. They are directed to choose just one of them, and it should be the actual Harlequin and not an illusion, though it is hinted that the illusions could potentially be identified by close observation. They could only ask them all to perform a movement of some sort at the same time. Another conundrum!

They think long and hard, which must be a new and painful experience for this group. In the end the pain pays off, as their request to point at the real Harlequin, having covered the mirror which could have been used to confuse the response, gives a very obvious answer. They cautiously select that Harlequin…

And are rewarded by a happy, frolicking and jovial character leaping from his static pose, dismissing the other two illusions and congratulating them on their choice! They are led to what they hope to be the final challenge of The Harlequin before they can gather this particular Song of Power…