Game-Summaries:10/19/2019 Recollections

The Observer's Recollections

By the Lady's Grace, we did every thing we could. Led them by hand right up to the gates. All we needed was for the wayward pup to be rescued from where She could not follow and he would have been dealt with. What they brought back with them was so much worse. Do they understand? Can they understand?

All that remains of the creature you all knew is Coin's Journal

Recollections by Kaylorr

It's been a long couple of days and I am still in denial of what a magnificent and utter failure occurred.

The Eternal Order lost Coin. WE lost Coin. Loco, Dereth, Zanna, Rezik, and I. Coin went in search of Yggdrasil to find answers. The Seer told us he has fallen to a great darkness and would be lost to us forever if we failed.

Coin said not to follow and yet we did, to bring him back to the light. We failed. Spectacularly....We knew the risks but Coin was family and our brother. We followed Coin into the dreamscape of where we could find Yggdrasil. Just like my recent travels to find Chandra or Liandrin, our adventure took us to a realm that was not located in our current...physical realm? Regardless we slept in the Yellow's Tower and dreamt of Yggdrasil and Coin.

We woke to an ever expanding see of grass. To the east was a great shadow cast by a large mountain, Mithaniel Marr. To the west was more grass. We went east towards the mountain and shadow. Zanna spots a cave right as a huge beast appears from the ground. Miraculously we make it inside right as it crashes into the entrance, causing a cave in and trapping us. We found ourselves to be in a labyrinth. We push deeper, moving right and left. Dereth tried keeping a map so we don't get lost but with so many twists and turns it became overwhelming.

As we sat discussing what to do, all of a sudden an unseen presence appeared among our group. He called himself the Observer and was working with the Raven Queen. Samir, Shaunak, Robin, Joe, (what are these names? why did I just choose to write that) Rezik, Loco, Zanna, Dereth and I realized much more were at stake. As we ventured forth, we kept coming across open rooms with a painted mural of what we deduced to be Yggdrasil. The murals started as simple drawing of a twisted tree and evolved into a full colored tree that depicted 9 different realms attached to it from within Mithaniel Marr. We also discovered additional writings from Coin and decided we were on the right path.

As our search continued, our reality and identity seemed to break. Coin's writings became more erratic. He spoke of a story that he knew but did not exist in our world or reality. I saw/felt glimpses that we are puppets in some sort of twisted game, where individuals created us through their imaginations, where the entire world that I know was made up from multiple stories and worlds put together by an ever-seeing deity, whose rule was law. All of my choices and thoughts and emotions and skills, controlled and created from nothing more than pen and paper and random chance. like a coin-flip or a roll of dice. We tried forming answers from clues that were nothing more than diversions. As the Seer said, we were addicted to thinking and it was starting to show.

With our minds unravelling, we forced ourselves to press on. Eventually finding a spiral staircase and moving what we think is down. More corridors and hallways. More walking. More whispers from the Observer of our regrets, fears, and failures. Our party finally came across our goal, Coin. Sitting in the middle of a chasm. But there was something wrong. He sat there, unmoving but vomiting a continuous stream of darkness. The Observer leaves us in a huff, knocking over our dice and stormed out of the house....we felt the Observer's presence leave us and we moved forward to rescue Coin.

As you may already know, we did not rescue Coin...we watched in horror as he sat there vomiting a never-ending stream of black hideous nothingness. This creature turned towards our party with nothing but malice and hate and we worked to break its hold from Coin. We were no match for this thing and we slowly lost hope. Our belief in Coin vanished, our confidence dwindled, and our HP (what??) minds and bodies were battered. With no other plan, JoeDereth cast Word of Recall to pull us out of the impending doom and with that...Coin is gone and lost to us forever. In his place, an old God of the past has come back. One who has been dead for hundreds of years. Nerull...

And it's with these thoughts and concerns, that I end this entry for it's the beginning of the week and already I have started to procrastinate with my regular duties. I have been through death to save Chandra and Liandrin. Why couldn't I do the same for Coin? I am ashamed of this failure and will do everything in my disposal to ensure we do not lose another member to this darkness. Coin's name and memory will never be forgotten and I hope he was able to find peace. May Pelor's light guide his soul towards light...

X

Recollections by Rezik

Zanna, Dereth, Kaylorr, Loco, Gramph and I decided we need to set out to find Coin to stop him from descending into madness.

We started by finding Inugs and convincing him to join us. He was able to tell us a few things to started us on our journey. He wasn’t sure exactly where Coin was, but he said that they had parted ways on Mithaniel Marr. He said that someone named Gumtoe might know more and that he and Coin had visited him somewhere in the north east.

We thought we should go to Wisakedjak to see if he would come with us. Sadly, he wouldn’t follow us on our journey, but he did recommend we visit the Seer, that she had information about the underwater village Coin had described in his journals. He told us the Seer would be waiting for us.

We went to visit the Seer in her tower. We climbed her tower to the 8th floor and saw the Seer drinking tea, facing away from us. As we entered she said, "The Raven Queen and I are twin born, equal yet opposite. She deals in absolute & certainty, I deal in uncertainty."

She told us the only way to get to where Coin, is to go through Mithaniel Marr. That we need to let go of the delusion of time.

We asked the Seer about Yggdrasil, which she described as a metaphor for how the worlds are connected. That Yggdrasil is not a real tree.

She also let us know that Gumtoe is not actually real, and that Coin had found something in the village but didn’t tell the Seer. She confirmed to us that the Libris Mortis is not real, that it’s everywhere, and that Coin is receiving it.

We decided that Coin didn’t follow a physical journey, but that it was probably a spiritual or mental journey.

Instead of actually going to Mithaniel Marr, we decided to go back to the Magistery and find beds to fall into a dream.

When we awoke, it felt darker than it should have been. We appeared on a rocky terrain, with a large shadow in the distance to the east. We felt a light tremor in the ground almost like an earthquake far away.

We began walking to the east, and suddenly the tremors got stronger. We walked for about an hour before we reached a stone facade.

Suddenly, a giant beast came out of the ground and began to gallop towards us. We enter a cave that Zanna found. As soon as we entered, the beast crashed into the cave and caused it to collapse. We were stuck in the cave, in total darkness.

We started walking through the cave and found ourselves walking through what felt like a maze. We realized that we’re continuing towards nothing and decided we should rest instead.

When we awoke, we found ourselves at an intersection. We began moving east deciding that we’ll continue on always moving towards the east.

While we walked, we would find old journal entries from Coin. I wasn't able to save any of them, but hopefully someone else from our group kept them.

In some of the rooms we would find a drawing on the wall, images of Yggdrasil, with each image becoming more and more clear as we find the next one.

After awhile, we finally found ourselves in a room with a collapsed corner, that seems to be a tunnel somewhere. With nowhere else to go, we made our way through the tunnel. On the other side, we found ourselves in a mirror image of the room we were just in.

We continued walking until we realized we've reached a dead end. There was an image on the wall, which seemed to be a key of some sort. We needed to solve the puzzle to open the door.

When we looked at the images we realized there were hidden runes on the back of the scrolls we found. When we decoded the letters, it told us to remove the stone that was the Raven's eye.

When we removed the stone it opened a door to another room. In the room, on the far side was a gaping maw. Within the maw we saw Coin throwing up black ichor. Next to him was a writhing black mass of tentacles, similar to the black ichor he was throwing up.

We quickly made our way into the room and attempted to make sense of what was happening.

We were unsure of if we should be attacking the the mass or if that would hurt Coin. We felt like we had already lost Coin - that was our first mistake.

We started to battle the mass, and I quickly fired my most powerful spells. Gramph used her breath, but it was as if nothing had happened.

Coin and the mass started casting death spells at us, bathing us in necrotic energy. It felt like we would never be able to win.

Dereth used Word of Recall to save us. We felt the pull and quickly followed it, doing what we needed to save ourselves.

As we teleport, we heard a scream in our souls. We had lost Coin. We had failed.

I fear the repercussions are worse than we anticipated. It seems Coin is the third to fall to the Shade - first Gimble, then Danavus, and now Coin.

It seems like Coin or the shade of Coin has resurrected a god, Nerull, the god of death.

We'll need to be better prepared for the next time. It won’t be easier. I’ll need to create more clones for Gramph and I. We can’t be afraid of death. This failure will haunt me, there’s no undoing it.