Callie’s Journal
Lady Nightshade challenges Callie to drink it again. Callie passes, but only barely and only with Vondal’s help, again!
Vondal shows her the SPI badge (?). She says, “You are the ones we need.” She then swings her scythe and rips a hole in reality through which we can see the pulse of the Flux. She punches into the rift and grabs the Flux. It starts crawling up her arm. Gross! This could give her immense power. Bec and Callie think that the Flux is using her more than the other way around, though.
Freki shoots into the rift with a lightning arrow and the Flux snaps the angel’s arm off at the elbow. She’s kinda pissed! And also made out of mouths! The mouths shriek, “We will consume you aaaaaalllllll!”
“We should kill these people,” says Oz.
“How?!” demands Freki.
“With violence, how else do you kill people?” Oz says.
The magic surrounding the sexy Chippendale angels breaks, and they turn into glowing balls of light with faintly visible visages within.
A residual psychic echo enwreathes the balls of light: fading images of flaming skulls, which they once were. The charm they were running on Oz broke when they became heads, so he’s only charmed by the angel now.
Bec, Vondal, and Callie sense that the angel has an overwhelming desire to eat us, as opposed to what she wanted earlier. Nom nom nom. She was consumed by her need to consume. Callie thinks when she said “we” she didn’t mean her skulls, but someone else we haven’t seen yet. And also something more sinister, perhaps from beyond reality itself. Jinkies! Maybe we should try being worse at our jobs, to avoid inspiring this kind of behavior.
Oz attacks one of the skulls and stabbinates it. The hornblade has necrotic, poisonous damage. Its negative energy cuts through the positive energy of the room. The glowy flamy light of the skull dims. Oz skewered it good, so it’s stuck like a shishkebab now.
All the foes attempt to intimidate us. Oz and Cal are afraid, but everyone else shakes it off. The skulls hit Oz (and Cal?) with a beam of light that sucks some of his life force into Lady Nightshade. The unicorn taps Oz with its horn and he regains some health!
Vondal tries to banish Lady Nightshade and one of the skulls, but unfortunately he becomes terrified of Freki and also drunk. He does regain some spell slots, so…nice? But the spell succeeds somehow, and Lady Nightshade and the skull disappear.
Callie casts Calm Emotions (lvl 2) and the party members who were frightened or charmed are calm now. Yay!
Just then, reality slice apart and Lady Nightshade starts climbing out of the rift. She’s mutated even further, somehow! Freki decides to shoot her in the face again, assuming he can find it. He manages to get her right in the neck and the rift snaps shut, slicing her head clean off. Cal catches it like a goddamn basketball!
Oz attacks the skull he attacked before, whose wounds were slowly closing up. He destroys it.
The unicorn gives Vondal a goodbye tap with its horn and vanishes.
Before Oz can murderate the remaining skull, Bec tells the party to hold up. She wants to ask it some questions. The skull tells her she is not of this place, but she seems cool, so it will tell her what she wants to know.
Where is the positive energy coming from? The Master.
Who is the Master? The Master is the Master.
Where is the Master? Below.
The Master was once called Timor Invictus, but not anymore.
Vondal asks how we can kill him. You know, so we can make sure that never happens.
The skull says Timor is stuck in a realm of endless suffering. He’s tried to die, but can’t. That’s kinda sad! The skull doesn’t want us to kill him, but maybe there’s a way to, ahem, end his suffering. That would be the kind thing to do.
The skull starts shaking and sparking. A figure superimposes on top of it. In a ragged voice, it says, “You’ve come. I will be waiting.”
The skull says, “My master calls!” and flies away downstairs.
By the time we’re done talking, Cal and Oz’s wounds have healed. The positive energy is almost getting annoying at this point, like, give it a rest already.
The party takes a quick look around. There’s a banquet hall, a magic laboratory, a library. In the lab is a journal written in an elegant hand and signed by Illyana Nightshade. The journal begins 300 years ago. She appears to have been researching how to join Invictus in undeath. She successfully created a Philosopher’s Stone, and then she ate it. It does seem to have given her eternal life, but she is now forever hungry and thirsty. Towards the end (about three years ago) are notes about how efforts to cure the insatiable hunger and thirst aren’t working. Nothing about splitting apart and become a tooth monster, though.
Next we look around the library. Oz snags a crystal ball that looks valuable. Bec tells him that it’s used for scrying. There’s a bookmarked story about how Vecna lost her hand.
Timor (probably) tells us to find him upstairs.
Upstairs, there are three main areas: an art gallery, guest rooms, and a study. The skull that went upstairs before is floating around the gallery at random. Well, it’s not like the art is going to appreciate itself.
Oz checks the study door for traps. It gives him a funny vibe. He grabs Cal and asks him to take a look too. Cal agrees it’s weird. They feel like it would be a bad idea to open the door, but there’s no clear reason for it. Bec can use Mage Hand to open it safely, perhaps.
Meanwhile, some of us remember when we were talking to Malachai, he mentioned the “Gallery of Whispers.” Maybe we should check there? We all gather in there to hide from whatever explosion or whatever is going to happen when the study door opens. She casts Mage Hand, and…the door is…locked.
The skull whispers, “Why did you defy the Master?” to a painting. Each of the paintings is a portrait making an emotional face. Vondal thinks the Mirror of Living Memory might have trapped souls in these paintings. There aren’t legends to that effect, but still.
Murky touches a painting and hears a wail of misery. Vondal tells us to touch the paintings. “It’s like a seashell, but instead of the ocean you hear the lamentations of a lost soul!”
Vondal and I grant Bec some extra fate juice as she attempts to remove the trap on the study door with Dispel Magic. She’s able to avoid the trap and doesn’t set it off.
Door’s still locked, though, so Oz is going to try to pick the lock. Inside, the eight magic domains are scrawled on the floor – a portal? On the desk is a scroll covered in divine symbols, as well as figures resembling each of us and some of our associates (Sartus, Tybalt, Bram the Blithe, and Timor Invictus). Mine is next to Avandra’s symbol, natch. Avanadra appears to be at the intersection of air and sand, whatever that means.
Bec wanders away to look at the portal. She knows a lot about portals and can see magical rivulets for channeling magic energy. She postulates that maybe we need to pour each of the types of magical energy into it, in order to activate the portal.
Cal looks at the paper with the figures and notices that all the people represented are the ones invited to the undead party before! Nice one, Cal!
Everyone gathers around and tries to figure out the paper with the tokens and symbols. Vondal figures out that the elements correspond to the magic domains:
- Water – Knowledge
- Storm – Tempest
- Air – Trickery
- Sand – Life
- Fire – Light
- Magma – War
- Earth – Nature
- Ice – Death
I’m confused about why Avandra and Erathis are on here under two things, when each represents just one domain. Also, the combined form is also on this chart. What?
Cal is inspired and getting this thing solved! Freki is also coming in strong on this puzzle! It occurs to Freki that every square is covered and only one god occupies each one. Maybe this is an illustration of the lines of power in the world?
| Water | Storm | Air | Sand | Fire | Magma | Earth | Ice | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Knowledge | Tempest | Trickery | Life | Light | War | Nature | Death | |
| Knowledge | ? | |||||||
| Tempest | Vondal | ? | ||||||
| Trickery | Ioun | Brandobaris | ? | |||||
| Life | Sartus^ | Callie | Avandra | ? | ||||
| Light | Moradin | Invictus* | Tybalt* | Pelor | Hyperion | |||
| War | Erathis | Kord | (spider) | Bahamut | Sune | ? | ||
| Nature | Bec | Melora | Sehanine | (cornucopia@) | Corellon | Gruumsh | Gaia | |
| Death | Vecna | Bram | Oz | Nerull | Cal | Tiamat | Freki | ? |
^ = prone figure
* = darkened square
@ = scratched out
+ 8 mystery symbols on the diagonal
We spent quite some time figuring this out!
| Eternals | Elements | Domains |
|---|---|---|
| Corellon | Fire + Earth | Light + Nature |
| Avandra | Sand + Air | Life + Trickery |
| Erathis | Magma + Water | War + Knowledge |
| Ioun | Air + Water | Trickery + Knowledge |
| Moradin | Water + Fire | Knowledge + Light |
| Vecna | Water + Ice | Knowledge + Death |
| Brandobaris | ||
| Kord | Magma | |
| Melora | ||
| (spider) | Magma + Air | War + Trickery |
| Sehanine | ||
| Pelor | Fire + Sand | Light + Life |
| Bahamut | Magma | |
| (cornucopia@) | Earth + Sand | Nature + Life |
| Nerull | Sand + Ice | Life + Death |
| Sune | Magma | |
| Gruumsh | ||
| Tiamat |
| Mortals | Elements | Domains |
|---|---|---|
| Bec | Water + Earth | Knowledge + Nature |
| Cal | Fire + Ice | Light + Death |
| Callie | Storm + Sand | Tempest + Life |
| Freki | Earth + Ice | Nature + Death |
| Oz | Air + Ice | Trickery + Death |
| Vondal | Water + Storm | Knowledge + Tempest |
| Bram | Storm + Ice | |
| Sartus^ | Water + Sand | |
| Tybalt* | Air + Fire | Trickery + Light |
| Invictus* | Fire + Storm | Light + Tempest |
Munin speaks to Freki and says he needs to activate the portal.
On the Nature/Nature square is a symbol representing the Divine Mother Gaia, perhaps the source of all life:
She predates the eternals, according to legend. Cal recognizes the symbol as appearing once on a letter his father got once. He mentions that his dad claimed that he “used to be a god” and talked about things he would do if he still had his full power.
It turns out that when we touch our own symbols, they light up, wow! But before we can activate the portal, Vondal and Cal leave to check out the basement. Down there are servant’s quarters, more stairs leading down to the crypt, and a door with some evil-looking glyphs. Vondal thinks it looks like a lock of some kind.
Something floats out of the servant’s quarters while Cal and Vondal are looking at the door. It’s a giant neck-head thing followed by a suit. “You won’t get in there,” he says helpfully.
“I believe the Master is expecting us,” says Cal ominously.
“You do not possess the power of the Goddess of Secrets,” says the servant (?).
Cal asks if they need that power to see the Master. The servant says you need it for the door, which may or may not lead to the Master, whatevs. “This is Invictus’s chamber, beyond which lies the Veil of Secrets.”
Vondal recalls that one of the people who hired the SPI said the Veil of Secrets was the source of the problem. The butler opines that it doesn’t matter whether they get it open or not, because nothing matters anymore. Vondal offers him a job, but he doesn’t seem interested. He seems depressed. He should try taking a walk or writing a gratitude journal.
Cal wanders off while Vondal converses with the spirit. Eventually Vondal comes back and we all combine to activate the portal.
Through the portal is a mirror with a cloth on it. Vondal mentioned before that the butler said Invictus could see the future and sometimes the past, when he looked in the mirror. The edges of the room just fade away into nothing, as if we’re always in the middle of the room no matter how far we walk.
Oz holds up the hornblade and uses it to cast light around. The room gets bigger, but there doesn’t seem to be anyone or anything else there. Munin seemed veiled before but now seems clear. Hugin was clear before and is now veiled. Munin tells Freki to accept his destiny.
Vondal yanks the cover off the mirror and Munin is perched atop it! Munin says this is their domain, the domain of memory. Glancing at the mirror, Freki sees flames. Munin says the mirror shows what Freki has forgotten. “This is where my parents died,” Freki realizes. But he wasn’t there when the village burned, so this can’t be his memory.
Freki sees himself go to confront the invaders and say in a voice that isn’t his, “What do you want?” It’s Freki’s father’s voice. He says he has power.
The centaur Talos laughs condescendingly and says that power is what he came for.
Freki’s father turns into a tiger. His tiger claws rake at Talos while crying things like “Abomination! God hater!” Some of Talos’s bling comes off in the fight.
The last thing Freki sees is Talos landing a finishing blow on his father.
Vondal looks in the mirror and sees himself having a wild magic surge. All the SPI agents around him get sucked into some kind of singularity produced by the Arkenstone. Vondal feels a divine presence and sees a dwarf-size (but metaphysically huge) entity called Moradin. Vondal thinks it was a divine intervention that ultimately ended the wild magic surge.
The mirror shatters!