Game-Summaries:1/12/2018 Recollections

Recollections by Ci

What seemed a simple investigation proved to be not so simple at all.. After attempting to enter the training dungeons, and instead finding a warped refection of that place... after facing a host of Abominations, being captured and freed, and destroying the being that seemed to mold this place to his twisted will, we still know very little. Some wisdom was gained... I will petition the Elder Masters to add these True Words to the Book of the Mountain: "Never, Never talk to Mindflayers" and "A Bear on the Stairs is worth two in the Room." However, we are still blind to much of the truth of the disturbance, and indeed its ultimate cause and eventual goals still elude us. It is perhaps this truth that gives me the most pause as I reflect on our adventure.

In fact, I am still somewhat shaken by our the encounter. Master Fēng says my mind lacks the "still calm of the lake at dawn, before the geese and fishermen have awoken." Zifu Poe, who hears not the words of Master Fēng as I do, would simply say I am disquieted. Which Master is right I know not. The dust of truth swirls, and seeks its own cracks of entry. For myself, I worry for the implications of what we experienced. The creatures we faced were certainly reason enough for worry. They were Horrors which, should they ever be loosed on the world, would doubtless cause untold chaos and death. But no, it is what these monsters represent that causes wide ripples in my calm: Beasts a mere hair's breadth from the Magistery itself... Beasts poised to strike at the Magistery's most vulnerable members with a vast intelligence seemingly directing it all. That intelligence, in the form of an aberration with the ability to turn our very own hands (or claws in the case our intrepid shape shifting Ember) against us. An intelligence with a clear purpose and a clear place in larger scheme, with both the ability and the resolve to oppose Magistery agents and turn Magistery devices to it's own will. A troubling shape emerges, like a shadow through thick fog, when one examines these discoveries along with some of the others uncovered by our brethren of the "Eternal Order": hints of a "list" of enemy possible enemy agents (some now eliminated)... a mysterious listing for The Magistery with the name Kaanyr. These hint at a dark plot to strike at or subvert the very heart of the Magistery. We know precious little of this possible threat, and cannot seem to make one of the heads of the Houses acknowledge the danger.

Before I finish, I must first say a few words of our companions. I have begun to feel a close kinship to them all, especially to brave Cassio. We have often found ourselves together in the heat of battle, his brash boasts hiding a fierce determination and almost foolhardy disregard for personal safety. Cassio truly is, as the Book of the Mountain says, "a room full of Life" with "no door for death to enter." Shape shifting Ember, protector of Cassio and foe to Honey and Salmon... powerful Sakura who brings thundering Doom in the form of delicate cherry blossoms... Strange Rezik - a being of staggering strength of Mind... and Amon, our timely saviour and wielder of the wild magics! Even terse Yevelda, who despite her grumblings fought valiantly and loyally. These companions become have become closer to me in our short time together than many I spent years with at the monastery. As I write these words, Master Chōuyān whispers "a swordsman prizes the blade gilded in blood above even the one forged of gold" How much stronger the blade that has shared both blood and gold? I hope only to be worthy of their company, and in their company I am sure we can root out the evil that seems to stalk us. But I only Study the Path... I know not what lies at its end.

Recollections by Sakura

Prelude

Recently we've been hearing that something strange has happened within the Training Dungeon (Amber, Baern, Bimpnottin and Bree reported this). Upon further investigation, we found out some of the details:

• No mission when the training dungeon starts
• Very odd and misshapen creatures, rather than the expected humanoids
  • Frogs with eye stalks and other odd things like this
  • Resembled pieces of different creatures and created a single grotesque creature

We needed to talk to a higher authority and sought out an audience, but the Red was the only one available, she's not particularly helpful and hates the concept of the training dungeon, however she did tell us something very useful - something from the real world or another plane could possibly affect what is shown within the training dungeon!

Our little group of Cassio, Ci, Ember, Rezik and myself quickly noted that Cassio is likely to die if we don't find a more capable healer to join our investigation and the unknown of this investigation is quite dangerous. We found and enrolled Yevelda to join us.

Training Dungeon

We were told that there are no instructions when the dungeon starts, but that seemed to have been an overstatement. There were, just not in any language that anyone present had ever heard. Something is definitely wrong.

The initial hallway is rather short and ends at a wall, which of course is illusory. Lacking a better option, we simply barge through. I'm sure readers of this recount are shocked that some of our group would opt for this /eyeroll. If you really were shocked, please go back and read Cassio's other adventures. We immediately enter into combat as we encounter many of the grotesque frog like creatures that Battlehammer had mentioned to us. I immediately need to resort to harnessing the powers of the Wild and invoke the Tides of Chaos. Magic is truly wild and wonderful. Once we've dispatched these aberrations, our investigation leads us to believe that they are somehow related to beholders and each of them posses two eye stalks.

We decide to alter our approach from here on in and I invisibly proceed ahead to scout, while mentally linked with Rezik. I'll keep this brief. We encountered and killed a cackling ghost and exploring the castle we find a massive, pieced together grotesque creature sitting on the throne.

The Walker

Immediately after encountering this "King" I find a Mindwitness who calls himself The Walker. I immediately tell the party to kill it, having encountered a similar creature before, however before we're able to vanquish it, it manages to shoot odd beams all over the castle, which wakes up the sentries, including this "king." This aberration manages to stun the entire party in quick order, though I feel as if I was within moments of killing it (hard to tell honestly), and we wake up without our equipment within the cells that we had passed earlier.

The Escape

Amon finds us and releases us from the cells. We didn't have time for chit-chat to find out how he got here and how he managed to survive alone. We find a small chest that contains an odd glass plate (we take this of course).

The King

I continue to scout for the group while the rest of the group is locating our equipment. I quickly return as this "King" seems to still be awake, despite The Walker being dead. We equip ourselves and go up a different path, however the aberration is ready and attempts to surprise us as we attempted to sneak up on it. We were much better prepared and quickly dispatched of this grotesque creature.

The Far/Outside

Upon investigating, Rezik discovers that this creature is from the "Far," or the "Outside," which is something that he read about in a book recently. It is known as the space between planes. Rezik says, and I quote as this seems quite relevant:

It's the here there be dragons territory where the dragons are made of fish sticks made of crystallized screams of the sound of purple and the flavor of jealousy, or at least that's the closest your mind that is bound up in multiversal thinking and perception can come to comprehending it.

Completion

We attempted to rest several times, but kept on being interrupted by aberrations of one sort or another. Finally after 3-4 tries we're able to rest and shortly thereafter we encounter a fucking mind flayer. These creatures are extremely dangerous. Thankfully they were not accompanied by beholders. I thought we would die here, and Cassio nearly did a couple of times, but I saved his skin by slaying the mind flayer with my clever and wild magic. The mind flayer was accompanied by a pesky golem, who we dispatched second. As soon as it died, the dungeon faded and we returned to our bodies.

The only additional note that I can provide is that the items in this dungeon were not normal. Carpets made of water, tables made of lead or paper. Just odd, all of it.

Recollections by Rezik

It sounded simple - "go check the training dungeon, something is wrong with it" - that's what they told us (kind of). I joined up with Cassio, Ci, Ember and Sakura (Amon was supposed to be with us but I'm certain he got drunk and overslept again) and we started to discuss how we would tackle this problem.

We started by trying to learn more from someone at the Magistery, but Liandrin, "The Red," was the only person available. She wasn't too helpful and really didn't find the concept of the training dungeon as a useful tool. (Important note: she has red silk sheets on the walls...) We did learn that the dungeon is run by a magical artifact and that it's possible that something is corrupting the magic.

I recommended we talk to the first group that actually experienced the issues with the training dungeon. We knew Baern would be at the pub, so that's where we began. He let us know that when they entered the dungeon, they were attacked my multiple monsters and had to leave right away.

We finally decided it was time to enter the dungeon. Realizing that it would be better to be safe than sorry, we enlisted Yevelda to join us (Important note: Not all clerics are healers).

As soon as we entered the training dungeon, we knew something was wrong. The instructions that the dungeon projected were in another language, almost garbled.

We kept moving forward, through the initial illusory wall, where we encountered our first set of monsters. We saw the misshapen creatures that Baern had told us about. Thankfully, our group was able to quickly dispatch them. We recognized them as related to beholders and definitely deadly.

Not wanting to be ambushed by monsters again, we decided it would be best if we instead had someone begin to scout the dungeon. Sakura used invisibility and a telepathic mind link with me to begin exploring the dungeon.

As he explored, he came across a room with caged animals (one of which was a werewolf) and then encountered a ghost like monster. The ghost seemed to be able to see Sakura, so he quickly came back to the party.

Once Sakura arrived, we began to discuss our best next steps on how we might be able to handle the ghost. It wasn't long before the ghost descended through the ceiling and attempted to attack us. Thankfully, Cassio, was able to dispatch him (Important note: Cassio is an interesting person).

We then began our journey upstairs to where Sakura encountered the ghost. It was here that we ran into a grotesque monster sitting on a throne. It almost seemed like this monster was put together with random body parts. It wasn't moving or breathing so we continued on, exploring the rest of the floor.

As we opened a door, we were beset by a Mindwitness. Knowing how dangerous these can be, we quickly began to attack it. Before we could dispatch the Mindwitness, it shot beams throughout the castle. We believe these beams woke sentries throughout the castle, including the grotesque monsters on the castle.

We were able to kill the Mindwitness (thank you Yevelda), but the entire party was then stunned by the grotesque monster. As the last party member was stunned, monsters rushed out of every door on the floor, scooping up each of us and transporting us to a dungeon on the first floor.

It was here that Amon finally decided to join us. As I'm making my way out of my cell, Amon appears with keys. It appears that Amon entered the dungeon late and was forced to kill our jailers to reach us. Better late than never, I guess.

We searched the area and found our gear, along with an odd glass plate in a chest of glitter. We take this just in case.

Sakura begins to explore the dungeon again, to help us figure out if anything has changed. We realize that the grotesque monster from before is still very much alive and moving. We hoped to be able to bypass it, but as we explored the other paths, we realized a fight was definitely coming.

We stealthily made our way up to the monster. This time, since we were prepared and focused on the monster, we were able to quickly kill it. As I investigated the body, I realized that this wasn't a normal monster it - it seemed to be something that could come from "The Far" or the "Outside". There was a quote I read in a book recently that stands out:

It's the here there be dragons territory where the dragons are made of fish sticks made of crystallized screams of the sound of purple and the flavor of jealousy, or at least that's the closest your mind that is bound up in multiverse thinking and perception can come to comprehending it.

Feeling exhausted after the fight, we attempted to rest, but each time were beset by monsters. After making camp about 4 times, we were finally able to actually rest.

That's when we began our final ascent to the top of the castle. It's here that Cassio and Ci (the head of the party) first saw the Mind Flayer, Zahn. We knew this fight would be difficult. We fought valiantly, almost losing Cassio twice, but thankfully we were able to kill Zahn and his golem.

As we did, the dungeon began to fade. We quickly attempted to grab what we could - I found an amulet - it had Zahn's name on it in Deep Speech, but as the dungeon faded so too did the amulet.

When we spoke to Melvin about the dungeon he seemed annoyed as always. Even when we told him the Mind Flayers name, he seemed to know who he was, but told us nothing. I'm going to have to go back to the library and learn more about Zahn and the "Outside".

Important Note: Can we bill the Magistery for fixing their training dungeon? Will there be a reward?