Chapter 5: Eliator, the Stranded Isle

GM As you place the final crown and sword on their matching throne, each burst into piles of gold that spill over the now empty thrones. (21,000 gold and in all). Over the clinking of coins, you can hear a deep grinding of machinery ending with a loud “clunk” that echoes through the maze. Something, somewhere, has opened.
Inspection of the coins will show you an unusual design of a man’s profile with a long nose that spirals out along the edge of the coin. The obverse is covered by a splotchy design. You could guess that it depicts a border or landmass, but you can’t be sure.
Marcel I grab a couple of handfuls of coins to put into my pack and double back to the previous chamber
GM North to rope bridges south to shadow-pits.
Marcel
Let's go back to the rope bridges!
GM North to chess room; south to living mosaic; east to The Shell.
Marcel Chess room!
GM You enter the chess room and see the familiar sight of Gibba’s corpse. Curiously he chess pieces are clustered near the wall furthest from Gibba. You can barely make out a hazy outline of two silhouettes crouched over the worm-snake, blurry but transparent.
The decaying body twitches and jumps as if something were picking at it.
Marcel I'll circle around the perimeter of the room, keeping an eye on the silhouettes above the body in the center of the room as I make my way to the other side
GM You sneak through the room passing by the quivering chess pieces.
Left exit to the jade eyes, right exit to an unknown room.
Marcel Let's take a right this time
GM The next room is a pure white cube save for a long, black line that extends from your door to the exit on the other side.
The repeating sounds of the creatures in the room behind you grow more frequent.
Marcel I walk along the black line
GM At the moment your foot touches the black line it’s stretches it morphs. It forms and shapes into an outline of your greatest fear.
What does it look like?
Marcel A harlequin force-feeding me baguettes
GM The line’s complexity shows you the horrors of the baguette wielding harlequin, a daily threat from your youth in the Roux D’ori slums. Odd that you remember that now.
It will take you several minutes for you to continue along the new path shown. Do you attempt to shuffle along or jump at opportune times to skip portions?
Marcel I just shuttle along, not making any attempts to take shortcuts as I’m not sure of the exact nature of the room.
GM It takes 10 minutes for you to cross the room. Taking it slowly, you have no issues and do not alert the creatures to your presence.
The next room has an immediate exit to the left, but ahead the room wraps around a wall to the right. The room is darker than the last but seems to be lit from a source coming from behind the wall.
Marcel I choose not to question this room and go out the exit to the immediate left
GM The next room is narrow and plain, save for an abandoned pack on the floor. You can see that it has some standard tools and equipment attached to the outside, as well as some metallic disks peeking out from inside.
Two exits in the opposite corner: straight ahead through a dark doorway; left into a brick tiled floor in the entryway.
Marcel I approach the pack with caution, examining the room as I crouch down and examine the disks.
GM The room appears clear of obvious dangers, and you gently pull out a disk for closer inspection.
The material is a mixed alloy of black and white colored metal in a spiral pattern. It reminds you of a hypnotist’s device. There are four disks within the pack. (Otherwise the pack is simply an adventurer’s kit per the rule book.)
You feel a breeze flowing towards the brick tiled room in pulses. Windy, then stillness. Repeat.
Marcel I take a disk and stow it away.
I head further into the room. Standing towards the center, I look into the brick tiled room to my left
GM You feel the wind more strongly. The bricks are a short passage leading to a dark, unlit room.
Roll perception.
Marcel 14
GM The room looks empty, and the bricks look smooth.
Marcel I go over to the bricks and kind of push on the wall, feeling them
GM Roll reflex save
Marcel 14
GM An optical illusion obfuscated your vision. A few steps into the room, you notice the floor is sloped and you start to slide on the smooth floor.
The slope is steeper than you imagined and you slide even faster into the dark room below.
The next room is a bowl with a hole at the bottom. Grabbing the lip on the ledge you are able to stop yourself. Below you is a tube, a slide that leads straight down then off to the side out of sight. The gusts are strong here preventing you from pulling yourself up. It pulls at you again and again.
What do you do?
Marcel I pull out my immoveable rod and set it next to where my hand is and move my grip to be fully on the rod. I pull myself up between gusts, my back towards the slope
GM You pull yourself out slowly with your immovable rods. Making it all the way to the room with the pack, you look back at the sloped room and feel the wind blow.
Marcel I go back over to the pack, pick up a metal disc and throw it back into the hole
GM The disk slides down into the hole. You hear it scrape along the slope and into nothing. The wind stops momentarily, breaking the pattern, then resumes as if nothing occurred.
Marcel I go to the dark doorway and go through.
GM The next room extends out to your right and to your left is a wall. Directly across from you is the only other exit to this room. Above you is a starless void; at its center hangs a figure whose noose extends into infinity. Shadows fall from the body as your eyes adjust. It is the old man you assisted in death, Chronia's son. He twitches and sneers at you. "I needn't have perished. There was another way," he chides.
Marcel I ignore him as I know better than to listen to this nonsense
GM You continue past the haunt, ignoring the chides and advice that come all too late. The tiles of the next room are black and give the illusion of darkness, but on the wall to your right is a bright mosaic of a white ocean and a black sun. The waves animate slightly as they gently roll in the sunlight.
South is a doorway to the left of where you entered. Next to the mosaic is a short hallway leading north. To the west you can see the room with the unripe wine and the burst mummy filled with index cards leading to Chronia.
Marcel I touch the mosaic before I leave the room
GM The ocean waves begin to animate when you place your hand on the art. The lines calmly rise and fall in time with your heartbeat.
Which way do you exit?
Marcel I grin at this interaction and I head north
GM Up the hall and past the corner are winding anti-clockwise stairs going down into the stone. Across the hole on a separate platform is a dead ox, recently slaughtered. The precise wounds lead you to deduce that the act was not made by an animal. Around the bovine are several small candle vigils. Scrawled along the left wall is a memorial of names, surprisingly in your own language. The most recent looking reads “Go in peace, Vetch”.
Marcel I examine the ox and his wounds
GM Stepping around the stairs you see the wounds look like they were made with a small blade around the neck to kill the ox quickly. The ox is fairly large and would have gone for a high price at the market back home. The ox looks recently dead, so you believe the meat would probably be safe to eat for a few more hours.
Marcel I pull out a knife and cut a chunk of raw meat and store it
GM The meat is better quality than most back home get. You store it safely in one of your pouches. You’ll need to cook it soon or find some salt before it turns.
Marcel I note that and move towards the memorial wall
GM There are many names along the wall, each accompanied with some kind of message, “go in peace”, “rest always”, etc.
What do you want to know about the wall?
Marcel I simply lose interest and approach the stairs
GM The stairs are deep. You can’t see the bottom through the darkness. They are wider than the ox, if only barely.
Marcel I descend the stairs
GM You don’t remember how long you’ve been climbing these stairs. There’s a breeze ahead. You smell the ocean.
The top of the stairs exits out into an open room. You could swear that you had been going down, but here you are at the top of a well same as before.
Three sides of the building are thick stone columns; the gaps view out down to a sunlit island surrounded by ocean with no other land in sight. The back wall has a large stone relief depicting the form of a large woman with tendril-like hair. The building is otherwise empty. It sits alone atop a small mountain, looking over a small village and farmland.
Marcel Is it just a doorway to leave the room, or am I just in this stone building on top of a mountain?
GM (Think like a Greek temple on top a mountain on a tropical island about the size of Manhattan. Imagine the scene in Hercules when he talks to the Zeus statue.)
Marcel I'll descend down the path towards the village
GM You walk down the dirt path leading down the mountain. Soon you can see two women climbing up carry baskets of wheat and vegetables. Getting closer to you they notice your presence; they freeze, dropping the baskets. One starts to scream and the other runs back down the mountain.
Marcel I acknowledge the screaming woman as I walk past her
GM The woman faints as you get closer. You reach the bottom of the mountain and receive a full view of the village.
A few odd trees stand in the village; they are 20-30 feet tall and the leaves are bunched together at the top in wide fronds. Seven longhouses are spread apart from each other, each are built from logs cut from the tall trees.
Most of the denizens of this island have heard your arrival and are standing outside of their homes, watching you, frozen in place.
Marcel I look around and give a slight bow, to hopefully convey that I'm not threatening
GM An elderly villager steps forward and kneels. His ears are slightly pointed and skins has a dark tan from the tropical sun. “Oh, great Lo. Why have you graced us with your presence? Have we offended you? Please, let us commit your wishes so that you may return to the spirit world.”
Marcel I’m taken a back and say "I seek knowledge. Where are we?"
Marcel Looking around at the villagers that are in shock from hearing a God's voice, I clear my throat and ask "Where are we?" And I look around to examine everyone's faces
GM “This is our home, Eliator, great spirit. Why have you come here from the great beyond?”
Marcel "You will find out in time. Tell me about myself. How do I relate to your isle? How did you end up here?"
GM The man explains that these people are descendants of elves and humans who were sent to this island. They tend to the maze which they believe to be the world of gods and the afterlife. To them, you came from the maze and therefore are a spirit god, or Loa. The temple of the maze has always existed on this island and there are no other islands they can find in the ocean. Sometimes lizard-like people run their ships onto the island and enter the maze. No one knows where they come from.
Marcel I listen to the story, not reacting outside of an occasional nod. When he finishes his story, I turn around and begin going back towards the temple in order to re-enter the maze
GM As you walk away the people don’t move, but you can hear them whimper. The old man cries out to you from behind, “Great Loa, have we offended you‽” Ignoring them you reach the temple unhindered. It is unchanged.
Marcel I go back up the staircase, leaving island behind me.
GM You descend back down the stairwell into the maze. After an indiscernible amount of time you ascend back into the room with the slaughtered ox. It smells a little, but the flies haven’t found it yet.