Index

Sessions 11 - 14 - An Edifice of Absolute Dark

18 min read

Cast

The Crew of the Damselfly

Denizens of Stone Palm

… and others

Places

An excerpt from the warden's journal . . .

Long ago, the dark mage Pandelume was the source of much fear and destruction in the grasslands. In the end he was struck down by the hero Tyshiqat, and his minions were cast back into the shadows from whence they had risen.

But shadows lengthen once again—white-maned wolves stalk the pampas, and from them emanates an unnatural silence. The beasts of the field are skittish and fewer in number; the roads are beset by wolves, making travel dangerous.

Weaver Koh, the eldest of Stone Palm, says that something from the deep past stirs. Whatever it is, she says it must be destroyed.

Not only this, but members of the Anuran royal court have come to the city to meet with a Legation from The Benevolent Shroud as part of their own negotiations, and both parties have chosen to embroil themselves in this issue. The Chatelaine wishes to spend time researching, while the members of the Shroud urge for swift action.

And what of the thing itself? South of the city, lost in a maze of dense grass and barbed vines, something waits.

Session 11

Dialogue

Jan: Are we haunted? Cheò: How can you tell if you’re haunted?

Downtime

Brim

Seeking information about her origins, Brim meets the scholar Iruad at his camp, which serves as a traveling school as he roams the grasslands. She learns of the Uro, a humanoid race that once lived in the far north of the continent, and who all left this land some time ago.

An excerpt from the warden's journal . . .

  • Periplus of the Lands West of the Archipelago - … an island called Dēlum, or Dēlos … fair sized city on the coast… cold climate in winter, more moderate in the summers … friendly locals, though if you ask their hospitality you may have to chip in with materials or labor … always able to find a good diviner or someone to place a charm on your vessel …
  • The Worlde Entyre - … the Urodelian people once lived in the glaciers to the north, but changing circumstances caused them to relocate…

Having learned that that her people might now live in the Archipelago, she turned to Crow for answers. He showed her a drawing in his journal from his time there, and after gazing at it for a long while Brim found herself experiencing the memory as he did. She asked Crow to teach her how to make magical drawings and he agreed, but made her swear to not speak of it to anyone else.

Cheò

Cheò went to the artificer’s tower in search of information about methods of healing and protection from magic. He met Ione, the bookshop owner, and purchased two books: Kavita’s Potion Primer and Guide, and The Pharmacokinetics of Herbs and their Side Effects. Later, he met Inok for tea, and the two got to know each other a little better.

Skill

HERBOLOGY: Given proper ingredients, a PC can create a healing salve (restoring 4 STR) as a downtime action.

January

January got a haircut. After, while training in one of the city’s many parks, January caught the eye of Kallista, blade of Hisvet.

The two of them sparred fiercely and everybody was quite impressed.

Lu

While browsing the bookshop, Lu stumbled across a book that talks about ancient Anuran musical traditions. It claimed that there were compositions that were intended to be played upon magical instruments, and that they would produce spell-like effects when performed correctly. Apparently the art had fallen out of fashion as future generations of the Anurans lacked the physiology to produce some of the sounds required.

There were two examples in the book, and Lu spent time learning how to play them appropriately so that he could perform these spells using his lute.

Veda

Veda opened up to January about the ghostly dog that has been following them around. Their bond has deepened!

Later

That night Kallista came by the boat with an invitation to brunch.

Brunch

At a very odd and tense brunch, it was discussed that it would be in everybody’s best interest if the Legation did not rush into danger without knowing what they were getting into. Hisvet’s personal aurifex cautioned patience, and was waiting for a text to arrive from Starfall Academy that would hopefully have useful information.

Hisvet asked the crew to convince the Legation to hold for another day, using whatever means they thought necessary.

Session 12

After meeting with the Chatelaine it was agreed that they should speak the Legation, but they quickly found that there was no opportunity for conversation.

An excerpt from the warden's journal . . .

It is a simple house of stone: flat roofed, two stories tall. It is much like the others that surround it, differing only in that it bears the colors and standard of Uisgetaigh: dark green, grey-blue; an outline of the island in mid-air.

There is one pronounced difference: climbing up and around the facade of the building is an interlaced network of vines, sprouting trumpet-like flowers, white in color. Closed in the sun, open in the shade.

It is immediately obvious that something is wrong. There is a visible distortion, like heat haze, but tinged with shades of green and purple. There is a thick magical presence here, something like a waking nightmare localized to this one spot.

Here, Brim realized the source of the constant nightmares: the green vines bearing white trumpet flowers, the nightbloom, that has been spreading across the continent. She had an emergency call with Djura the Seer, who warns her to not fall asleep in their presence.

Within the house they found a terrible nightmare: dense vegetation intermingled with bone, twisting pathways through the dark, and the ever-present sound of whispering voices and laughter. Stalking the halls was a Fel Stag, who had a living face but a body made solely of bone.

On the desk in the study Brim and Lu found the orders handed down to Ailin from The General, which explained that the mission of the Legation was twofold: to meet with the Anurans, yes, but also to quietly investigate a possible cause for the recent earthquakes that the island has been experiencing. This was Ailin’s great fear, which gave birth to the nightmare.

In Ailin’s room they found the source: a spellbook on a desk, near a small vase of white flowers. He had been having recurrent nightmares even before now: of the sun going out, and of being forced to watch as darkness covered the land.

They broke Ailin from his nightmare by slaying the stag and its two attendant Blades. January dealt the killing blow, driving its sword through the thing’s chest

Session 13

The crew worked together with the Legation to purify the home:

  • Veda and Brim helped tear down the many vines which covered the surface and interior of the building.
  • January helped move all the furniture before and after everyone was done cleaning.
  • Cheò went and gathered food the replenish the larder and to serve for dinner that night.
  • Lu helped burn all the discarded plant matter.
  • Llewela dismantled the spellbook, and Cheò watched.

Dinner

As the sun began its descent, all gathered together on the roof to share in a meal.

An excerpt from the warden's journal . . .

When you first ascend the steps and look out over the city and what surrounds it you see, to the south, a rising shadow. You blink and it is gone, emptied from your mind like the last few drops of water from an ewer.

Inok and Koh arrived bearing a samovar of mate and a few bars of chocolate to share. After dessert, the matter at hand was finally discussed. The Legation, rather obviously, was in no position move now. The goal had been achieved, and better yet all found themselves more or less in agreement: there was little point in trying to contain whatever was causing this. Better to be done with it once and for all.

As they finished, Kallista arrived bearing news: the aurifex found directions to something called the campanile of night—a reliquary and ward against The Dark Star, which was built long ago by the people of Stone Palm and a group that would go on to form The Benevolent Shroud.

The Next Day

The Crew of the Damselfly, Kallista, and the Legation all met early in the morning to travel south to the campanile of night. Before you depart, Inok teaches you how to ride a grasshawk.

Inok

“This is the grey language, the language of beasts. If you speak to a grasshawk, it listens—if you call it friend^[passatil, lit. ‘friend’], it will let itself be led by you, for a time.”

On the outskirts of town they met a flamewarden named Roqaya, who told them of a section of the grasslands that would not burn despite their best efforts. Following their instruction, the party found it within the day.

From an old book of poems

beyond the varied rows of green
there lies a path—ere rarely seen;
deep within the shadow’d trees
where elementals dance, at ease

within the Wood, the way revealed
the distant star alights,
‘pon the spire empyreal:
the campanile of night.

Within the enclosed grove they discovered an isolate belltower ringed the elementals of The Wood—dryads. They implored the party to take up the arms within, the former tools of the hero Tyshiqat, and slay the magus before it would escape.

Veda climbed to the top of the tower and rang the bell, which revealed a passage in the nearby pond—ostensibly to their final destination. Veda briefly conversed with one of the tw’k, a small beetle-man which rode down from the sky on the back of a dragonfly. He said that he was from the above, and was here to make sure that everything was going the way it should. He said that it seemed like the party had things well in hand.

He also told Veda that Tyshiqat was not dead, but left our world to walk under the light of different stars. He did not explain what he meant.

Everyone took an item from the reliquary before departing. Notably: Lu took The Diadem of Stars, an object rumored to link its bearer to a distant entity in the far reaches of space.

Session 14

An excerpt from the warden's journal . . .

Long, long ago, the people of Stone Palm worked with a group that would go on to become The Benevolent Shroud to build this belltower, using techniques taught to them by the denizens of the ossified city. It was a last ditch effort to seal away The Dark Star, which had been called to our world by one who sought great power, and whose ambition nearly doomed us all.

When you traveled to the Campanile of Night you crossed into the domain of the Wood. When Veda ascended the bell tower, there they met an emissary from the Above. Upon ringing the bell, a path revealed passage through the Deep to this tucked away corner of reality—little more than a hectare in size, this land where there is no sky.

A union in six parts, strong enough to lock away that which seeks to unravel our world.

You stand in a courtyard of shattered stone across from the mage’s tower, separated from it by an arc of ruined buildings, whose broken edges and cracked facades bear ghostly remembrances of their original construction—as if your presence here makes the insubstantial more real.

Speaking of the insubstantial: that ghostly dog which has been following Veda around has slowly been growing in size over the last few minutes. It stands behind Veda, tall enough now to clear a building in a single leap. It steps forward and Veda is subsumed within it, just barely visible in the ethereal shimmer of its form. They seem okay, there’s probably some dog magic going on that they’ll tell you about later.

You see that the dark prism bears the scars of its sealing—there is a a flaw in its edifice of perfect darkness, a corner of the inverted pyramid has been removed cleanly. From it emanates a violet glow.

It floats above the head of what you assume must be Pandelume, the fallen mage. A featureless body of palest white, molded around darkness. Where its face would be: nothing. Its form terminates, not in legs, but in a sprawl—10 arms of varying shape and size. It rests upon four of them, while the other six bear the objects of its dark magic.

It is flanked by two wolves, which in turn are bound by a red thread, held by one of the mage’s many hands. On the rooftops left and right of him stand two Blades apiece: bipedal shapes constructed of plant matter and bone, their faces covered by flat slabs of obsidian, their unseeing eyes all turned to gaze upon you.

Destroying the black prism is your means of egress, and the power to do so lies within the diadem of stars. The husk of the magus will do anything to protect the source of its power, and will not know the true death until this connection is severed.

Strategy

  • Brim rode Dirtbike, the giant magical dog, into battle, and helped take out the foes up above.
  • January and Kallista struck at the wolves, before turning their attentions to the magus.
  • Cheò and the Legation controlled the battlefield, and picked off stragglers before they could come back and cause problems.
  • Lu communed with the diadem, channeling power to destroy the prism.

Glory in battle

  • Brim did a backflip off the back of Dirtbike, driving her daggers into an enemy as she crashed down onto them.
  • Cheò fired a precision shot at the magus’ hand to strike his spellbook and cease his channeling of a flaming wall, allowing Brim to scoop up the book using telekinesis.
  • Kallista and January fell into a fierce battle rhythm, which Cheò interpreted as their way of hitting on each other.
  • January withstood multiple attacks that would have served as a deathblow to a lesser warrior.
  • In the final instance: January’s blade struck true. The knife—enhanced from the blood of an earlier wound—drove the magus down to earth, allowing Lu to line up the final shot.

The Desolation of Pandelume

The Diadem of Stars

Your consciousnesses condenses to a single point, and you feel as it is stretched across the vast gulfs of space to make contact with something infinitely remote and unknowable. Because of your bond with the homunculus you find that both of you are conscious and present in this moment, your minds overlapped but not co-mingled. The star conveys not words, but meaning. What you are being given is the contents of a life: all the light it will ever produce. Across that infinite boundary of space and time you return, light burning within you. It has been but a moment since you made this connection, hardly any time has passed at all. In this moment you are song and the voice that sings it.

The sky returns, but only one star is visible—its light so bright that all others pale in comparison. The magus Pandelume thrashes, seeking escape. The dark star reorients itself toward the sky to witness the light, to face its doom.

The party discussed, out of character, how Lu might manifest this power. As a group, we all decided that it would best be described as being the result of him playing his lute in a badass fashion. I asked what that might sound like, and said something to the effect of “like what note would it be i guess? like idk g sharp major?” we all had a giggle about that.

Light fell from the sky, cracking the prism and reducing it to nothing more than a pile of black sand.

But they were still not out of harm’s way.

At this point Lu revealed what he had suspected from the moment they arrived: that the place they were in was deep at the bottom of the sea—that this small chunk of reality had been placed out here and cordoned off so that in the worst case, maybe the intense depth of the ocean’s floor would crush it. There was no way out.

An excerpt from the warden's journal . . .

It is as if a dark veil were cast over the sun. It is the darkest it has ever been. the only illumination comes from the thin corona that surrounds the small chunk of land that you stand upon—and even that grows smaller as you watch. You can see no further than its boundary—beyond it is only dark.

everybody please make a WIL save

for those of you who missed your target: you feel reality catch up with your current circumstance. the pressure of the deep sea slams into a barrier which only just holds on. the reverberation echoes through you, massive in its force. you crumple to the ground like a discarded toy.

for the rest: The creatures of the deep alight for but a moment. In the roiling dark you see millions of small flashes of light, electric blue and violet and colors in shades that your mind has not been adapted to interpret. An unspoken language. It is the most life any of you have ever witnessed at once. And then it is gone. Something else replaces it.

It is common knowledge that once, our world’s oceans housed leviathans of great intellect who helped shape the early courses of our history—the bones which make up the ossified city are the remnants of one such. Many thought them gone, returned to the sea of stars from which they originated.

But at least one remains. Its seven massive eyes move independently of each other, and each emanates a pale blue light—you can see nothing of the face or body which they are attached to. It sings a comforting song, a song of return, sending vibrating patterns through the frigid water that resonate deeply with the hollow spaces of your body

There is a moment here, a rest in the song. A space for response from… who, you? You could ask it…. what, exactly? Anything! You have earned that much. The answer will find its way to you.

Questions from the party

Cheò: How will we get home? The Legation: How might we best safeguard our island? Brim: Is home only in my dreams? Kallista: How can I grow strong enough to protect those that need protecting? January: Is it possible for me to come back better?

The Aftermath

An excerpt from the warden's journal . . .

The song ends.

Reticulating lines spiderweb across the horizon, and bit by bit the real world replaces the unending dark until, eventually, the sky returns. You are left, geographically, at the same point as where you entered to find the belltower, only it is no longer here. Whatever forces kept it bound to this place have dispersed, and now it could only be found by traversing deep into the Wood.

The stone ruins and the remains of Pandelume’s tower seem… empty, docile, devoid of the malice that they previously held. It is eerily peaceful here now, as if the bright light of the twin moons has purified them. All is as it should be.

It is a clear, warm night. In the far distance you hear the howl of a wolf—just one, at first, but more and more of them add their voices to the choir—an act joyful defiance. Eventually, Dirtbike joins in as well. They will not be quieted again.

Koh and Inok had set up a nearby camp, and waited for the party to return all throughout the day. They are met with a warm fire, food, drink, and company. They all stayed up late into the night, until one by one they fell asleep, leaving Brim awake by herself.

Above, she noticed a great bird overhead, occasionally blotting out the moons as it circled the camp. Eventually it descended, landing on a nearby log beside her—a giant crow of argent white.

It shared with her a dream, a memory:

The Lord of Winter returned to the tower in the snowy wood. He spoke to the Lady with some urgency and excitement, showing her an odd thing he found—an old egg, abandoned in the caverns beneath the snowy jungles of the far north. “Your people are gone now, ” He said. “But I will do what I can for you, little egg whose spark caught my eye in the dark”

“SPARK, SPARK” cawed the raven from its perch upon His sleigh.

And then the dream ended.

Brim thanked the bird and it bowed before ascending back up into the sky, leaving her alone to wonder.

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