Reflections Campaign

20 min read

THE ILLUSION DOTH NOT FOOL THEE TODAY

Session 39

TLDR
Important Points:
  • Astrid von Novis initially sealed the woestrider (also known as the fate beast or fate strider)
  • Sorean was alive during its sealing, as was Violet
  • Oolb was saved by Percival during Sorean’s initial encounter with Ruin
  • A portal (presumably made by Abyss) is absorbing the power and souls of all the corpses
  • Reverend Doctor Arlo Meadow died
  • Opal tells us more about the rings
  • We go through the portal, and it seems to be able to recreate scenes/things from our memories
  • Seliph is deeper in the dimension, which is split into blocks
  • Tabitha is angry
  • The convergence of souls is a transfer of energy, and it is already “in the system” of Ruin and Abyss
  • God of Life Genesis is shackled by a contract of some sort but could be of assistance against N and Yul would be helpful in this regard
    • One of the heads of the blocks believes only Genesis can rival N and is unsure if Azathoth(?) is willing to help us

04.23.0347 | Half Moon Bay, Valzelia

  • The bust of Tabitha now has a note draped on top of it, Gabriel/Ruin is taunting us
  • Note is torn page from journal, hand writing is familiar somehow

“…Well I’ll be damned, Violet was right. I had no clue that fate beast was real. She seemed to revere it somehow. Well, it is pretty god damned strong. Astrid had a lot of trouble against it. Maybe she’s not all the academy made her out to be. She didn’t get in our way, at least. Goes to show that magic isn’t the be-all-end-all. She claims that her seal will hold it in. “Nothing short of divine intervention” my ass. I don’t really see the appeal to this whole time magic thing. Given the choice between freezing a beast in time and killing it, I’d go with death. Violet agrees that she is inexperienced, but sees potential. I don’t see how sending her out on these field missions is going to help her given how long it takes for her to think of spells to even bring. Either way, the strider of fate is sealed in the depths of the Celestial Peak Mausoleum. I’ll check on at war’s end. Maybe I don’t trust her enough yet, but I will slay the beast for good if Astrid’s seal fails. Brother, if you’re reading this, it couldn’t hurt for you to take up steel in addition to your magic studies. Spells can fall short, but a blade to the heart always kills.

→ Sorean Vasara

  • Oolb pops out, instead of his normal jaunty joy, he seems frazzled, “he was the one, he ripped me from my plane, the man you saw in ur vision, he was ur best friend in a past life, it’s a shame you don’t remember him, he (Percival) was the one who risked his life to save me, I don’t know if my aid is enough, but I can help, I hope my power is enough, Ruin has control over all of his associates, even their corpses, you should be safe until the pact is, either broken by the other party or he decides it’s over, you should be fine for now, I can’t promise you anything but i’ll try my best to shield you”
    • Oolb looks pensively
  • Bloo’s stab wound is pulsing purple, cracked and hardened, scar-like
  • Bloo updates everyone with what Gabriel told them
  • We walk outside, the sky has turned into a black-ish purple hue, at the center of the sky see a massive distortion in space, a four pronged star-shaped rift
  • Corpses littering the streets, some disintegrating, corpses that had rings and others that didn’t
  • Something is floating towards the rift, weird blue and golden strands ascending into the rift, collecting, gathering
  • “They’re all gone” as Opal is sobbing running towards us, “You have to do something”
    • The tears is making her eyeliner streak and smear, she looks like a total wreck, she’s babbling
  • Nim slaps Opal, “Get it together!”, a clean backhand, grab her shoulders, and shake her “Hey! Stop that, what is it”
  • Opal: Sorry forgive me, you know I’m all about appearances. I loaned a hat to a good friend of mine and she just, she dissolved right in front of me, I told her the ring was dangerous and she didn’t listen I know how I was before and I know I wasn’t particularly helpful and I see that that was wrong
    • You’re staying in the 4 leaf clover, one of the rooms she was staying in, can you go fetch the hat she was staying in
    • I for lack of better words, a bitch
    • Opal takes a ring out wrapped
    • “I did some investigating”
    • The handkerchief that touches the ring dissolves
    • Nim: “Shit I have a ring in my pocket”
    • There’s a hole in Nim’s pocket
    • “All of a sudden, the ring just disintegrated everything it touched, I can’t contain them for very long, there is a limit, i think it has something to do with the contiguous mass, if you layer it, it won’t disintegrate the ground”
    • “It’s only been like 30 minutes and in my shock I couldn’t do much”
    • “I feel like i’ve seen everything before me”
  • We walk back when suddenly at the feet of Yul, she feels a weird warmth, it’s fuzzy
  • Yul stops, she feels a purrr, it’s an orange cat, this cat looks very stupid, it has sad pleading eyes, and it already really likes Yul, and it has a collar
    • Name: “Copper”
    • Owner is the letter G or an E or A next to it, very old and worn out
  • Nim stares at the cat, the cat stares back, it tilts its head and glares at Nim, but doesn’t hiss, it purrs as Yul gives it pets
  • Yul picks it up, it noodles
  • Bloo casts Detect magic
    • Detect a little bit of magic from the collar, conjuration
  • The cat seems to like Sarah, and bloo-ish
  • Bloo notices a lot of necromancy magic from the corpses
  • We have reobtained the frigid staff and the energy cube
  • It is completely empty in the inn, no receptionist, but there are a lot of doors
  • We find 84 gold (21 gp each) in the rooms we lock-pick
  • Find bright green fedora with pink sparkly feather
  • Seliph is mysteriously nowhere to be found, as is the inquisitor
    • The ordinary town folk have run inside, suits of armor from the guard collapsed on the street
    • See spears and swords flopped on the ground
  • We go back to Opal who is outside of her tower, she’s a little better
  • “Oh you’ve returned”
  • Opal puts on the hat, “this was one of the first things I tailored myself, I learned how to make clothes”
    • “Here is a family secret recipe”
    • Pulls out a flask, it’s an Erlenmeyer flask with a shimmering pink liquid, it is very bright and it’s emitting a lot of light
    • “Pardon the brightness, this is an old family recipe, my mother was an alchemist, I hope this helps, it may not be as potent as hers, I hope this is worthwhile, I did gather a little bit more on the rings, it seems like there’s a limit to how much they can disintegrate at once, even considering size”
    • takes another handkerchief and drapes it on the ring, the ring is no longer glowing purple and no longer disintegrating things
    • Each ring can disintegrate at least 2 people’s worth, but it doesn’t look like it will work if it can’t disintegrate the entire thing
    • Enjoy the drink for a full minute, nothing more nothing less, take your time drinking it
    • “I will be off, thank you for the hat, I will be hiding in my tower, but please don’t be a stranger”
  • Sipping the potion for 1 minute will give you the effects of a long rest
    • Gressenheller’s Secret Brew
      • A Gressenheller original recipe. Made from extremely rare and expensive ingredients, this drink has incredible restorative properties. The potion itself looks like a shimmering pink liquid in a prisine glass bottle, sealed with a cork. Drinking this potion instantly revitalizes your mind, body, and soul. After one minute of enjoying the drink, you gain the effects of a Long Rest.
  • Bloo casts Sending to Seliph
    • “Where are you, Gabriel is Ruin, gabriel wants us to kill the woestrider ASAP, portal is sucking energy from corpses”
    • Seliph replies, “I don’t know where the fuck I am, I see blue and purple everywhere and many illusions”
  • Looking at the portal, we feel a little lighter, we could let ourselves get carried to the portal
  • Bloo drinks the potion, it tastes pink, chest is no longer aching, feel a lot better
  • Oolb: “this brings back not so fond memories, I was ripped from my plane by this demon, Ruin”
    • “This whole disintegration into smoke and souls is Ruin’s MO”
    • The portal isn’t Ruin’s MO
    • Oolb senses something very different, I haven’t encountered it directly, that might be one of the other vows
    • I do think this isn’t quite his plan, see how they’re all going towards the rift now? Remember when you interrupted the ritual it all went to him first, he was initially trying to absorb it all for himself when he got his 2nd ring back
    • Not trying to feed to N but maybe to something else
    • God of Death Nyarlathotep
    • Ruin doesn’t have power over space
    • Abyss is the embodiment of the plane of the Abyss, but I think abyss’ power is with creating such spaces, it could be similar to what we experienced at the tea party, I suspect those subspaces are connected, because it requires so much more energy to open a 2nd subspace than to just get a different part of a bigger one
    • I believe Abyss can control the entry and exit points
    • To my knowledge and my experience, it didn’t matter going back into the entry point I was yanked from didn’t take me back, his power of portals is very strong
  • This portal feels like a tear in space, taking you to a different plane
  • Seliph may have been taken or ventured into it himself
    • Oolb: If it wasn’t for percival’s stupidity I wouldn’t be alive
  • Oolb believes you should be able to leave, but that might be subject to change
  • We go to the temple, there are corpses inside, a lot of them, but they’re not disintegrating, some of them have stab wounds, some corpses are actively disintegrating, with a knife sticking out his back and a ring in his hand
    • The reverend is hunched over at the altar
    • Stab wounds are a little purple, they’re cauterized, corpses without rings are not crumbling
    • Recognize the blade about those who bombed the competition grounds, this seems to be a similar crafted weapon
  • Bloo mage hands, and mage hands repetitively as the hands disintegrate, to lift the ring out of the reverend’s palm onto the floor
  • We go to the ring store
  • We go down the ladder chute
  • At some point we just stop and we’re in a room that looks like a void
  • There is one ethereal looking door, it looks more like a portal, it looks like space is rippling
  • See a pink portal that is closer to us
  • Look like standing on nothing
  • Everything around you looks blank with slightly blue and purple hues except for the weird rippling distortion of the blue door
  • Sort of see through it, kind of see a manor?
  • Go through blue door
  • See a windowless room with lots of support columns, wall at end of room, see a painting that looks torn
  • Bloo mage hands the chest with mage hand, hear a weird click, somewhere
  • The wall at the end is fake, it’s an illusion
  • Go to the painting, can walk through the painting, end of hallway see another chest
  • Sarah’s eyes becomes really blurry for a moment, she rubs her eyes, and everything seems fine now
  • Nim goes up to the chest, and it just swings open, see a helmet
  • The helmet looks like a very old steel helmet but it has a weird indentation in the shape of something(?), you put something in
    • The indentation of another headpiece
    • Shaped like a tiara or circlet almost
  • Sarah takes the helmet and puts it on, it is a mundane helmet and counts as medium armor
  • The eye strain is fading away a little
  • Behind the fake wall down a hallway see a bronze statue, almost Tabitha like but just the face, a weird rendition, looks more menacing than she actually is, behind it is a painting, a framed blank canvas
    • In the hallway is a mounted deer head, taxidermy
  • Nim and Bloo go up to the statue
    • The statue fades back into the painting, as if there’s no wall behind it
    • Touch the painting, Nim sees weird spectral hands grabbing your arm, and they’re pulling Nim into the painting
    • Bloo grabs Nim’s arm
    • Nim gets yoinked into the painting
  • Nim is in the foyer, the statue is grabbing her hand, it says “shall I let the others in”
    • Nim: “yes…”
  • The painting turns into a door
Foyer
  • Fake wall, on the other side are 2 gargoyles and a bookshelf
  • Bookshelf has a book that is suspiciously leaning out
  • No book is labelled
  • Nothing in the book, each page is the same sentence, “One must always be privy of prying eyes”
  • Nim pushes the book in, hear a voice, “One must always be privy of prying eyes”
  • The gargoyles are slightly glowing purple
  • Sarah takes spellcleaver and cuts the head off, the eye stops glowing purple
  • The gargoyle slowly rotates in the direction of the other gargoyle and the eyes glow even more purple
  • Sarah bashes the head in of the other one, glowing purple eyes fades
  • Hear a click click
  • Bookshelf has a line straight through the middle, it’s 2 bookshelves
  • Go through, see a fancy door
  • See a fancy room, grand piano in the middle
  • Top is a mirror and 2 display cases, on the right is 2 marble statues of armor, bottom see another bookshelf
  • The piano does work
  • Sarah goes up to the piano and plays a nice melody, it’s almost calming
  • Notice something must be on the strings itself, something shiny in the piano
  • Notice an orb that’s not doing anything, no rift in it, not magical, seems deactivated?
  • Bloo takes the orb
  • Notice a marble sword in the open display case, and the other one has a normal sword in it
    • Looks like the sword one of the knights is holding
  • Nim looks in mirror reflection
  • Nim picks up the sword and gives it to the knight and hear a click and the gate opens
  • The tiling feels kind of familiar, like I’ve been a room like this before, seem to recall being in a room like this, had a colleague of mine and the air was magical
    • Remember in a past life I was dressed rather nice, a formal event, not in the material plane
  • WHERE IS OOLB!?
  • Bloo doesn’t remember the tune, Violet was playing the tune though
  • Bloo attempts to hum the tune and have Sarah play it
  • The door by the suits of armor is open
  • Through the door, floating in a weird space on our own, feel a force pulling us back in, the air around you is sparse, can’t breathe
  • As Nim and Bloo walk back in, we aren’t in the same foyer
Colosseum Foyer
  • We’re in the barracks, feels very different, hear a lock, the door behind us is sealed shut
  • To our left is a couple benches with unfinished drinks
  • Coffee table, weird glowing crystal
  • “Hello there! It appears as the challenger has arrived”
    • A spectral shape, a physical soul
    • Needs to send 2 ppl into the colosseum
  • The ruler of this place would like to test you
  • Physical and psychological tests
  • Only 2 of you may enter, and you must surrender your weapons and put them into the chest, others may proceed to observation deck
  • Nim would get a dagger
  • The dude can read souls
  • The beams of light refract through Yul’s body, through the shards, “Quite the popular one, this husk seems to inhabit multiple souls” “i was instructed to give special instructions to that one”
  • Bloo would get a greatsword
  • The dude says spells won’t be super useful
  • So we decide to send Sarah and Nim
  • Apparently it is to our advantage to put the weapons into the vault
  • Yul tosses a rubber knife into the vault, it automatically went back into Yul’s hand, at t he spectral dude’s discretion
  • The passage of time in this dimension is different from our own plane
  • Nim and Sarah puts their weapons into the vault
Colosseum
  • Nim gets a spectral rapier after nim haggles for it over a dagger, Sarah gets a spectral longsword and shield
  • Nim and Sarah walk into the arena, hear a voice psychically in your brain
    • “Welcome chosen brave souls, I am the core of the souls absorbed by the ring that have not been absorbed yet by the masters of this domain, your job is simple, put these souls to rest using any means necessary, your weapons are the easiest means, diplomacy can only get you so far you know”
    • Hear many different voices melding together as there is no soul in charge
    • “These souls are off to be judged”
    • Fugue(?) plane
  • See a giant purple crystal in the center, where the voice is coming from
  • “Testing your willpower”
  • The crystal goes “come hither” and pulses
  • Purple and gold streaks form a shape around the crystal, the soul crystal rises and glows purple
  • The streaks converge but they give rise to an adult women, she seems familiar
    • The voices fade
    • “Hello, it is I, Mayor Agnes Stonefire”
    • Sarah: “I’m the mayor!!!”
    • Stonefire: “I died”
    • The soul looks confused
  • Stonefire: “I’ve already been absorbed”
  • Sarah and Stonefire have a very odd conversation(?)
  • The soul is glowing a brighter purple
  • Stonefire asks about Dongle?
  • Stonefire: “My soul is burning out”
  • Sarah attempts to use revivify on Stonefire and it doesn’t work
  • Stonefire is begging to put her soul to rest
  • Nim stabs it
  • Stonefire: “Thank you” as the strands of gold unravels, the soul crystal falls
  • The soul crystal rises up, and this time, it’s a young child
  • “Oh hi! How are you? So new people :o you all have similar rings, I got this really cool present” on left hand
  • The kid wants to give this girl (who gave him the ring) a necklace but he can no longer remember her name or anything about her
  • The child glows purple more as he realizes this
  • And becomes angry
  • The spectral voice goes “you know what you have to do”
  • Kid: “Please send me to rest”
  • Sarah refuses to stab the kid
  • Sarah sheaths her sword, the child goes “NOOOO” and dissolves and vanishes, the soul crystal is spinning very rapidly
  • Feel your usual weapons show up in your hands
  • The window for the spectators shatters
Combat vs. the soul crystal
  • It grows and expands, a face starts to form, it appears to be a golem
  • Yul: guiding bolts it, misses, the golem shrugs it off
  • The golem crashes back down, formed from souls, crystal core
  • Bloo: Hex + eldritch blast
  • Nim: drinks health potion + planar warrior?
  • Sarah: Hits
  • Yul: healing words sarah, sacred flame on golem
  • Golem: floats in the air, spawns 3 new streaks of light that emit out of different parts of it, each of those 3 weave together into soul like shapes
    • The top one is the soul of the reverend
    • The right one is the child
    • The bottom one has a divine presence, Allie!? sarah feels as if it can’t be real
      • “Sarah please” hear a deafening scream, the visage of Allie holds her hand out
      • Sarah feels somewhere deep inside that this isn’t her
  • Bloo: lightning bolts the child, the golem, and fake Allie
    • Vaporize the child
    • As Allie fades, it turns into a demonic screech and lunges at Sarah, it falls to the ground and it utters something, it reaches up to Sarah and Sarah dodges
    • THE ILLUSION DOES NOT FOOL YOU TODAY!!!
  • Nim: shoots the reverend, it hisses as it fades
  • Sarah: 2 hits and misses
  • Yul: sacred flames, while being very cringe, and the soul golem fades, all the strands of the souls fade away, as the crystal loses its color and plummets to the ground
    • Looks like something in the center of the crystal
  • Sarah casts Light on a shovel and throws it down the bottomless pit, and it falls out of the sky and hits Nim on the head
  • Receptionist: Congrats! You got your reward
    • The crystal shatters into many small pieces, revealing a liquid(?) but it’s not
    • It’s a purple thing that looks like a slinky
    • “Use it wisely”
    • “You will need this in your journey here, I am but a humble receptionist, but I can break the rules a little for you all”
    • Snaps his fingers and showers us all with blue particles
    • “As your reward for slaying the crystal golem and calling out the illusion” he heals us and you may ask me 2 questions that I will answer truthfully
  • Sarah: Where is Seliph?
    • Seliph is deeper in the labyrinth, in a further block that I do not have domain over, I am the ruler over this block but not the entire dimension, Seliph is in another block imprisoned by Tabitha
  • Nim: How do we prevent the owner of this plane from getting power from the souls that have died?
    • You wish to ask about they absorb the souls or how we could get it back?
    • Nim: “How we could stop it from getting power from the souls”
      • Unfortunately for you and your cause, it is too late, all the ring bearers have been slain and Tabitha is furious, all of the power of the souls you have been fighting, they were illusions and not souls. This dimension is not powered by that, all that soul converge is moreso a transfer of energy, it is already “in the system”, this “energy system” that comprises the ones you seek having ownership
      • The divine intervention you seek, you might not be able to get because I don’t know if he would be willing, but if you can unshackle the one with the contract, God of Life Genesis might be of use
      • He points over at Yul, “this one might serve useful in said unshackling but she is the only goddess I know of that has the ability to rival Nyarlathotep and I somehow don’t think you might find her demands to be too much”
      • “But if you do try and seek that, just know that you will be approaching a seal in your near future”
  • The receptionist fades away

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