(A quick note here, I've added these synopsis for people to go back and remind themselves about what happened or if people come in later and don't want to start at the beginning, they can read these really fast, but they are not a replacement for watching our videos as they are not full descriptions. If you don't want to video, you will miss most of the comedy and all of the fighting as I am not going to do a play by play of each attack. So, please check out our videos)
Day 23 3/1/2023
Episode 35
Dreams
Our sleep is fitful, all of us dreaming.
Felix
Felix sees the red hooded figure before him. They ask if he knows the purpose of why they did what they did to him. He replies in the negative, or for to torture him. Partially yes, but a) he was able to bond completely with the staff of Fangar and b) as long as he is holding that staff, he is far less mortal than most beings. If he requires aid, he should come see them. Felix and his staff will have the capability to go to the shadow school when they desire.
Xander
Xander is visited by the king under the mountain, the skeleton that we killed, but he is flesh, dressed in the same clothes, looking fresh and new. Looking at him like this, he bears a striking resemblance to Vulkus. He says that Xander is a fool. Vulkus is using him and she isn’t his friend and she doesn’t have pure intentions. She isn’t even an ally. Xander wants evidence and if she’s done this in the past, and he responds, him and his fathers. She will create and use and discard what is left. With how deep Xander is now, he won’t have a choice. He says that the amount that she has sunk her claws in him is hazardous to his health in the future. He did not have children, so her lineage died with him and that was important to her, so he can guarantee that she’s been looking for someone since then. The king under the mountain hates Vulkus, and he just wants to caution Xander to place some of his faith elsewhere. Xander asks how to rid himself of a deity. There are not many ways to do that, but it is achievable. The easiest way is to have another powerful being sever the presence, otherwise, he would have to find an item to sever the presence, or he could sever the presence himself but this has extra risks, like risk of fatality. 70% chance of death, 60% chance of mind or body, and if all succeeds, you become an oathbreaker. Or, allow a deity, even minor, to sever, which won’t turn him into an oathbreaker as he still had deific help. There’s a good chance that we are on this island because Vulkus wanted Xander here. Sypet, before the people settled here, was a minor deity and it all belonged to Vulkus. The king under the mountain can break the connection, but not at that moment. Xander would have to come back down to him. He is also a relatively new deity as he was undead six months ago, and only was able to ascend after he was killed. His place of power is up in the sky, the city floating above the island is his seat of power. The way up had been sealed as someone wanted to stop him from getting to his seat of power, cough cough Vulkus. The city in the water is not necessary but has a lot of nice artifacts down there, so we should go there if we want them, but it is not necessary. We next need to get to the city in the sky. He can feel the city under the waterfall that has the darkness. With a little more help, he could reclaim that city, as he can get to everywhere but there, and the city under the water. What he would need from Xander, as he believes he has become the minor deity of knowledge (if he gets enough followers, might be able to become a full deity), so all he asks is that Xander spreads knowledge about him. He doesn’t want to be an evil god, or even interact with people that often. There might be more that needs to happen, but he is limited in the knowledge he can access, so he doesn’t now. If his library were to be found, that would help. His secondary library is here, but the original was located far away from here. He’ll keep the way open to his island, but he doesn’t think he can make it completely safe until we can cleanse it of the shadow that currently sits there.
Idham
Idham requested from Gerebor to find out who he was, and was sent a bunch of images. He came to understand that he was not a deva before, he was not reincarnated as others, but this is his first iteration as a deva. His dream is the same images, but he gleans that his skill and knowledge comes from somewhere, many master craftsmen. Words come to his head, prime deva. It means nothing at first, but then he comes to understand that they were the first set of deva to exist and were created out of specific knowledge and capabilities. a prime deva of law, one of warfare, one of athleticism, one of knowledge, and as they procreated and then ascended, that knowledge became spread to all deva afterwards. To his knowledge, he hadn’t been taught about this and others don’t talk about it. This changes his understanding of the deva. Someone, somewhere, created the deva for this purpose, and that something decided that there needed to be a prime deva of crafting. Idham focuses, and different images appear of the Dawn Realm, and it looks bad now. It is simple stonework, and even the sites of birth that he thought were masterpieces, are quite basic/archaic. He can’t think of any other real deva craftsmen other than simple workers with stone or armor, but there is no artistic flair. He gets the feeling that whatever it was that decided that the deva need to be furthered in their society. He gets the feeling that whatever is providing the images wants him to take a certain path, but it’s up to Idham if he follows that path. It wants him to do something. It sends Idham a couple of faces of people to help him, a total of ten faces. The first is Raya. The second, Xander. The third, a male who looks similar to the images of Vulkus but he doesn’t recognize. The fourth, Gwyneira. The fifth, Felix. The sixth, Azazel. The seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth ones are Morag, Elliong, Felaer, and Islaara, some of his children. The dream fades, and as it does so, he hears a voice he recognizes, though he hasn’t heard her voice in a very long time. All that Dhalaria, his wife, says is, “You were right.”
Gwyneira
Gwyneira starts to feel cold and then she is surrounded by a black mist. She sees coming out of the darkness, a being who seems to be made of the mist she had been surrounded by. 16 ft tall, bulky, human from head down with a head of a bull. His name is Darwik. He is the demon she contracted with. He calls her tasty morsel and wants to tell her what she gets. He can grant extra power as well, he can feel the touch of necromancy on her and believes she was guided to him on purpose, and will lend some of what he has learned. Should she desire to break the connection, he will try to eat her, so be swift and careful lest he claims all of her in one bite. He fades back into the mist.
Village On our Island
We woke up the next morning, well rested, on our cots. Felix wants to test out his plane shift ability, and he grabs out the staff of Fangar, focusing on the front door to the school. The world swirls and twists and he’s standing in the ashen world, right in front of the doors. There is something furry and a little wet that he’s standing against. As he backs up, the wet is sticky, blood. He looks up and sees Kav. Kav is pulling on the doors trying to get them to open, but Felix knows that they are push doors. Felix takes the staff out to tap the door and puts some umph into it, and the door opens. Kav says he’s magic and licks him. Kav says he usually goes through the roof, and that he missed. He tells Kav to remember to push, and holds up his staff to leave. As the world starts to swim out of focus, Kav says, “Bye Uncle.” And Felix returns to the world. The room around him is empty.
As we wake up, Felix isn’t in his tent. Idham wakes up and decides to get breakfast with Raya. Xander dives onto Felix’s tent and the pole snaps. Felix and Gwyneira eat a quick breakfast and head outside. Az is perched on top of the council roof. Xander goes with Gwyn as she talks with town folk. When Felix comes back, he is draped in his tent. Felix yells Xander’s name as he comes back, it’s been three hours since we’ve been walking around. Raya and Idham come back to the island. Idham goes to talk to Xander before Felix gets back. Xander says he talked to a minor god and Idham says he talked to his dead wife he thought was dead. It’s been 400 years since he heard her speak. Idham says he wanted to apologize for yesterday. Xander also apologizes for putting us in that situation. Then, Idham goes to spend time at the forge.
Felix gets out of the tent, and heads to the council room. There, he takes the blood on his hand, rubs a part of it on his staff, and tries to telepathically speak to Kav. He thinks he feels the touch of another mind, but he isn’t certain if it’s Kav. But he assumes that it is, and says, “Come find me. You have a task I have for you. I have something that you need.” He doesn’t hear anything back, but as far as he knows the message was delivered. Then, Felix jumps up through the hole onto the roof and sees Az there. They talk, and Az says they are good and he has no ill intent toward Xander. Felix leaves and heads to find Xander.
Episode 36
Village On our Island
Az and Felix are still on the roof. Idham is at the forge. Xander knows that Felix is coming so he goes to the forge with Idham. Gwyneira is talking to villagers, who seem to not care that much about the council as they weren’t elected officials. Felix, from the roof, waits a bit to make Xander uneasy. Felix and Az continue to talk. It gets close to lunch time. Idham at the forge, is making a very nice piece of work and the people there think they could learn something from him. Gwyneira heads back to the longhouse as does Xander. Idham stays at the forge. Felix grabs Azazel’s shoulder and tries to teleport with him to the school of shadows and it works. There’s no wolf standing there this time. As Felix starts to fade back out, he notices that the hinges have been changed to swing both ways. Then, Felix and Az come back. As Felix returns, they aren’t in the same spot, they are on the other side of the council roof, and they see themselves fade out of existence. Azazel wants to know why Felix took him to the school of shadows, and Felix says he just needed to see if it worked, and then calls for Xander. Felix jumps down. Az joins as well.
We begin to talk about what to do next, and Azazel calls out to Idham to join the “family meeting.” Fifteen minutes pass and Idham joins us. When we start talking about dreams, Felix says he didn’t have one, but Idham calls him out. Idham asks Azazel, who says he always has nightmares. We wait for Felix to start talking, and Felix teleports away, and we see him slowly start to fade out of existence. Felix is back at the shadow school. He sees himself holding a box with his arm missing at the school. Felix comes back. We wait for five minutes, and see no Felix. He slowly fades back into existence. Gwyn tells them she talked to her demon magic daddy. Her shadow daddy. And Idham says he learned some things and then talked to his dead wife. And he says we might get to meet his kids. He had seven. Some of them are not living anymore, so we will meet the ones that are. Xander tells us about talking to the king under the mountain, and what they talked about. Felix and Gwyneira question what is blocking Vulkus if this is her island. We know that Vulkus is Lawful Good and is known for being good and helpful and helping mortals. Xander says that he wants to go to the dais to try to commune with this minor god. We decide we should give it a go, and we try to find Raya. We go into town and ask around to see if they have seen her, and they have not. We know what direction Idham saw her go, and head toward that direction as Felix tries to use his staff to find her. He can sense her and tell that she’s far off, and she’s in the direction of the first town we cleared.
We head toward the town, and when we arrive, we see her sitting in the ruins of the belltower. Her eyes are closed. Idham walks up and Raya doesn’t seem to notice or react. Idham asks her if she’s okay, and she says she isn’t sure. He wants to know what’s bothering her. She doesn’t really know, but something said she needed to be here. She was just going for a walk and ended up here. She hasn’t moved for a couple of hours. Nothing appears to have changed since we were last here. She still hasn’t moved outside of speaking to Idham. Xander and Gwyneira walk over a bit to be close. She had some kind of a dream last night, though not really a dream, a feeling more. She was approached by a being and she told her that she was to have a bigger part to play. She doesn’t remember how the being looked.
Gwyneira can almost see chains of energy binding her there and Xander doesn’t think it’s related to deities. As we check it, we notice that we can see her breath. It’s gotten very cold very quickly. Gwyneira and Idham look around, but we don’t see anything. It’s definitely getting colder though very fast. Felix checks her life force and sees it fluctuating, from healthy to almost dead in a sporadic way. The chains binding Raya seem to be giving off shadow energy. Gwyneira tries to break the chains. When she reaches out with her magic, she is able to make contact and starts to fiddle, and it doubles in strength, but nothing changes in Raya. When Gwyn tries to see if the energy is connected to the shadow beings, she feels a touch of it, but she doesn’t think it is from them specifically. She doesn’t believe it originated from this island. Raya has messed with a lot of stuff as a pirate so it’s hard to say where it came from. When she asks Az, he says he hasn’t seen anything like this before. Xander tries to move one of her arms, separate arms. When it starts, he pulls strongly and it feels like she is resisting, and he is able to pull it up and it feels like she is pulling pretty hard to put her arm down, but Xander is stronger. It didn’t hurt her though. She isn’t resisting on purpose though. Xander puts her arm down and Gwyneira doesn’t think this is enchantment, a spell that was cast in the moment. Felix is just barely able to notice that it looks like there’s a slight outline around Raya, but not exactly around her. It almost looks like there’s someone or something else sitting in the same spot. Xander tries a holy bolt on the chain, and it blasts a hole on the ground, but there is no change.
Gwyneira speaks in ancient abyssal. Something speaks back in abyssal. Raya is moving her mouth, but it’s not her voice and she calls Gwyneira, White Snow. Gwyn doesn’t recognize the voice, but is uncertain. Gwyneira tells the person to show themself and they say they aren’t there. Gwyn asks if it’s Tamako, and she says yes and that it’s been a long time, and she used Raya because she was the easiest to connect through. She came to speak to Gwyneira and didn’t come physically because she is partially abiding to the deal that was struck with Rashakk. She’s part of the Hex, but that’s not quite right. She is the leader. She didn’t just take it over, but she was sold and had little control over what happened to her for quite a few years. It’s a long story how she ended up in this position. She says there’s a breach in the world right now and she was able to tap into the energy to amplify, so if Raya moves, she’ll lose the connection. Xander stares in shock, and Idham sits down next to Raya, while Felix paces. Gwyn asks what she wants to tell her, and she says she doesn’t know, but she wanted to see Gwyneira and hear her voice again. Gwyn kneels and touches Raya’s hand and says, “I missed you, Jewel Child.” She says she will head toward where I am, and Raya gasps and opens her eyes. The energy departs. Gwyn tells the rest of the group what happened. Raya is stable now, and though tired, she is doing okay.
We head toward the dais. A few hours later, getting toward dusk, we arrive. Unlike the last time we were here, the runes are lit up on the statues of Vulkus surrounding it, and the pedestal itself on the dais is glowing slightly. Xander sits next to the dais and tries to commune with the minor god of knowledge. He replies that Xander should speak quickly, because it’s taking focus. The dais can be activated. Xander asks his name, and he says Zerutan. Xander jumps on the dais, Gwyneira follows, as does Raya, then Idham, then Az, then finally Felix. A shimmering blue light comes around the outside of the dais and under our feet, and in abyssal, we hear, “Welcome to the pathway to the city of Vulkaria, please keep appendages inside the light.” We rocket through the air toward the island in the sky. A minute later, we can’t see the island as there are clouds in the way. We burst through the clouds, and ahead of us we see a large rock, half a mile in diameter. And as we approach, it slows a little and we begin to descend and we head toward a building on the outskirts. It’s quite collapsed at this point. We slide in and land pretty heavily on the uneven and unstable ground, which collapses beneath our feet, and we fall straight down for a few seconds, and land on the ground below. Everybody but Az lands on our feet, Az lands on his back. Felix laughs at him and Az kicks him in the knee. The kick glances off. Felix helps him up. We have now arrived at the city floating in the sky.
Episode 37
The Island in the Sky
We fell through the floor and it’s pitch black. Xander puts a light spell on Ringo so she lights up the dark. We see coffins, beautiful, each one made of platinum. There are stairs that lead up, and they are made of pure gold. All the coffins are trapped but they are easy to disarm. Idham goes to disarm one, but it clicks and pops open and Idham is hit with a dart, though the coffin is open. He is poisoned. Gwyneira uses some of the external healing goo and he’s healed. Felix tries a different one and also gets hit by a dart. Gwyn puts the goo on him and Az heals both of them of their wounds. Felix opens the coffin and there is a perfect body. She is a blue haired tiefling, with purple skin, and she is dressed in a white gown with jewels all over, her face is pierced all over, and she looks like she conformed to the Sypet customs of the more jewelry the richer you are as she has 100 different piercings on her face. Gwyn checks the inside of the coffin and it doesn’t appear to be trapped, but the body isn’t cold. When Xander checks to see if there’s a pulse, there is one.
Felix walks to the staircase. Xander opens the coffin back up and a hand pops out. He drops it and runs away, and she pushes it open and sits up, her eyes turn pure black. Her head turns to stare at Felix. Idham feels a hand on his shoulder. When he looks, it’s a male dwarf, a white gown, not nearly as much jewelry as the tiefling, but he has gold woven through his beard and hair. Idham says good morning in dwarvish, and the dwarf stands up. The tiefling tries to attack Felix and the dwarf on Idham. They both miss, but all the rest of the coffins slide open, and as one, they all sit up. Gwyneira says hello in ancient abyssal. Nothing happens. We all run for the stairs and head up them.
We arrive on a street just a short bit away from the shed that we fell through and close the trap door behind us. It’s dark outside. As our eyes adjust to the moonlight, we are in what seems to be a full city, though it’s deserted. We do feel a very powerful dark presence here. There are shadows darting between the buildings, and as the buildings are made of marble, light from the moon glints off of them. We are on the outskirts. We see further in and along a flight of stairs, with a beautiful castle up ahead. The moonlight glinting off is so bright, that we are almost blinded. Gwyneira does not believe the shadows are sentient enough to be hostile. She does get a strong feeling of malice from further in. We head further in.
We step through the first row of buildings. Some of our power is drained and it feels like it’s just the air around us. Gwyn feels a throbbing in her mind. She mentally reaches for it and feels Darwik try to push out of her head and lash at her a bit, but as she fights him down a bit more, she feels stronger as he starts to feed out of the shadow tint around her. We keep heading in. As we enter the next row, more energy is sucked from all but Gwyneira. It feels like the presence is not from the castle but from in front of it. Gwyneira steps into an alleyway to see if it alleviates that shadow magic, but it makes it worse. Az summons up a daylight spell, and we feel a warmth and a little stronger. The sun is rapidly dwindling. Xander casts daylight as well and there’s a little more warmth. We dash forward to get as far as we can before the daylights go out. Az’s daylight fails and he reconjures, and Xander does the same. We keep going, and Xander trips and lands on his face and his daylight goes out. We keep going and Xander stumbles and loses daylight again. We round the next corner, and we maintain our footing. And continue, rounding the last corner. We are standing in what we believe used to be a courtyard but has since died out. There are broken pillars and a few levels with what looks like a pool of water closer to the other side. Rising up out of the pool, we see an enormous floating skull. It asks why we’re here, but then without waiting for an answer says that we wanted to feed him. He goes on the attack.
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