[Side-Session:: True]
[Recorded:: true]
DM - [Butter:: True]
Aerendyl - [Dragon:: True]
Shain - [Fluxy:: True]
Session begins Moonblossom 33rd 801av.
- The wedding is set for six days from now.
- Aerendyl decides to visit the cadet hall to see how new cadets are being trained, worried that the process has gone “softer.” He finds that the training grounds for first-year cadets have been repurposed as classrooms, where they are learning theoreticals, like resisting torture, without practical application, and hears the sound of laughter instead of struggle. The halls, once decorated with real suits of armor and weapons, now have them behind protective glass in display cases.
- Aerendyl heads to the Grand Magistrate’s office, on the second floor, the person in charge of the operation, but finds a younger woman who is the temporary magistrate. She informs him that the previous magistrate, who was “pushing in the 300” age range, recently passed away from a heart attack during a training accident.
- The temporary magistrate explains the changes by saying the old ways were “a little too intimidating” and that with the Dark Elves eradicated, the course can be eased. Aerendyl, Marshal of the Realm (not General, as the DM misread the column), expresses his strong disagreement, saying, “War is always happening, you just don’t see it.”
- The temporary magistrate suggests that Aerendyl head to the second-year hall, which is in a new building finished six months ago after the elders were replaced, where the training is more intense.
- In the new building, Aerendyl finds an intense training hall with mock battles using sharpened iron swords and familiar sounds of fighting and struggles. The second-year cadets are slightly more skilled than Aerendyl remembers his first-years being. He notices that magic is now allowed during these mock battles, which was not permitted when he was a cadet.
- Aerendyl sits down to watch the single-combat fights, which mostly last under 20 seconds. The top of the class receives the “nicest meal.”
- The instructor, a rough-exterior man, eventually notices Aerendyl and sits with him. They discuss the better quality of the new cadets and the inclusion of magic casters in the training. When one magic caster’s fire spell pushes a swordsman to fall and face-plant, the instructor, after noticing the swordsman is “not moving,” leaves to take the student to the medic, instructing the others to continue.
- With the teacher gone, Aerendyl, acting as a referee, encourages the remaining students to “go all out,” promising to “step in if something bad happens.”
- The final fight is between a magic caster and a student wielding a dagger (which others mockingly call a “short sword”). As the magic caster begins to cast firebolt, the other student, possibly a rogue, teleports right behind him and holds the dagger to his throat. The magic caster misses his spell, which flies into the crowd, and refuses to tap out, but Aerendyl calls the match after a “couple of seconds,” letting the rogue have his moment.
- Aerendyl gives the cadets a motivational speech on war, telling them not to underestimate their opponents.
- The instructor returns and, after a brief conversation, tells the class that anyone who can “lay a finger on me you can go ahead and take the rest of the day off but if you fail you won’t leave here tonight.”
- Aerendyl leaves and sees other classes: torture resistance training going real strong and a master class on how to prepare traps, where two students have already been caught in a bear trap, which is considered “regular.”
- Aerendyl heads home. Four days go by quickly as he is continuously working through “every itty-bitty problem” concerning the wedding, mostly disputes between Shylah Remor and his mother, Miriel, about the venue and color palette. The wedding is in two days.
- Aerendyl visits his father, who has been holed up in his office for over six months. Aerendyl opens the curtains and realizes his father has not shaved in about seven to eight months. His father, disoriented, asks Aerendyl where he lives.
- As Aerendyl guides his father to leave, a high elf runs up for help with a supply chain problem: a patrol unit in the northwest, up near the border, is complaining that there’s not enough food. Aerendyl is handed a large stack of paperwork to address the issue. After three more interruptions, which Aerendyl dismisses, he finally gets his father home.
- While his father is shaving and styling his hair in the bathroom, he falls asleep on the floor. Aerendyl returns to his father’s office to help with the paperwork and, using an Intelligence check (24), manages to clear a solid stack, including fixing the northern squadron’s food issue.
- After five hours of work, another high elf walks in with a stack twice as high, followed by two other high elves with their own stacks, containing “new proposals, reforms, and new declarations for the new units that they’re wanting to form.” Aerendyl realizes his father is receiving the entire hundred-page document for final approval instead of just a summary. He sets a new ground rule for the runners to only bring the “tldr” (too long; didn’t read) and “necessities.”
- Aerendyl returns home to find his father still asleep in the bathroom. He shakes him awake. His father is disoriented and asks, “How long have I been asleep? Couple? Oh, the paperwork is piling up.” Aerendyl informs him he did his job for five hours. In his disoriented state, his father gives Aerendyl full approval for his marriage and any requisition form, including the request for mithril for his limbs.
- Aerendyl informs his father he told the runners to shorten the paperwork to only the necessities.
- The day before the wedding, Aerendyl is helping his father go about his daily life, realizing he has to “baby him through this.” A young high elf runs up, informing them of intruders at the northern gate: a high elf (wearing a mask, whom Aerendyl identifies as Yinlare), a maybe kobold, and possibly a human, traveling in a covered carriage. Aerendyl’s father stands down the defenses, realizing they are guests invited to the wedding. Aerendyl asks for the human to be treated with respect, as he is of royalty, going by the name of Aragorn Mortensen, the “savior of Judicar.”
- Aerendyl’s mother, Miriel, and Shylah Remor continue to argue over wedding preparations. Aerendyl learns that the Wise Tree Thalasseryl may be participating. The wedding is a big nationwide event, as Aerendyl is one of only four Marshals of the Realm and is equivalent to a Crown Prince in status.
- On the night before the wedding, Aerendyl is not allowed in the same house as Shylah Remor and is in the forge tinkering with his metal arm. Shain Everon shimmers in and gives him a gift in a pink-wrapped box with a message: “to my loyal and only friend.”
- Aerendyl decides to open the gift after the ceremony. Shain Everon asks about his suits: one full suit and one with slots open for his metal arm and leg. Aerendyl struggles with whether to hide who he is. They agree that he should wear the full suit for the ceremony and potentially the arm-exposed version for the dance.
- Aerendyl opens Shain Everon’s gift, a compass with a blue tinge, which is linked to Shylah Remor’s soul to track her. On the back, it reads: “across every path and every world, my heart will always find its way to you.”
- The day of the wedding arrives. Aerendyl wakes up to a knock at his workshop door. Aragorn Mortensen walks in and gives him a hug. He is followed by his kobold companion, Ner’ees, who brought a bag of food “enough for the whole nation,” and Yinlare, who is holding an elven woman, Lily, his wife and the new queen of Lovantia. Yinlare is now the Queen’s consort (King consort).
- Aerendyl chooses to have his metal arm fully exposed for the ceremony.
- The best men are Deryth, Shain Everon, and Aragorn. Yinlare declines.
- Miriel (the mother) is the flower girl. The ring bearer is a very large overgrown lizard (Komodo dragon), which Aerendyl deduces is Shylah Remor’s familiar.
- Aerendyl’s father walks down the aisle with Shylah Remor, whose black dress is emitting “spirits” and “looks kind of like spirits.” She whispers to Aerendyl, “Well, I made it out of Dark Elves just for you.” Shain Everon admits in a whisper that he created the effect, though it was her idea.
- Aerendyl’s father, presiding, asks the standard vows. When he asks if anyone opposes the marriage, one elf stands up to object, but Miriel immediately silences him with a magic blast. Aerendyl’s father declares them husband and wife, followed by fireworks.
- The newly married couple must now complete the cultural walk around the entirety of Thalassiril, ending at the The Thalassiril to proclaim their marriage. Shain Everon creates a white, majestic, and light horse and Aerendyl has made a mithril carriage for the journey.
- At the Wise Tree, Aerendyl proclaims his marriage to Shyla, his wife. The Wise Tree’s face forms, opens its eyes, and says, “a marriage that is worthy of record,” before closing its eyes and going back to sleep. This is considered a blessing and means no one will bring up the fact that Aerendyl is not married to a High Elf.
- Shylah Remor later whispers that portraits can wait, and the couple returns to their house, and a time skip occurs… i wonder why.
- One week later, as newlyweds, Aerendyl’s friends have departed. Shylah Remor mentions she has to get back to her boat soon, but can push their departure for another two days. Aerendyl gets a hefty chunk of mithril as a wedding gift “from the nation of Thalasseryl” from his father. Aerendyl ensured the documents going to his father’s office will now be the “TLDR.”
- The couple is on their way back to Emmeria. They stop in Columa for two nights before Shylah Remor has to depart for Niam.
Time Calculation
8 days in Thalassiril - Moondream 4th 801av
13 day travel to Amerihya +1 day of rest - Moondream 17th 801av
Session ends Moondream 4th 801av