Session 1-10: The Shadow Grave

General Summary

Year 116 on Arbeitag the 18th day of Kalt

In the Dark of the Night. The group take a live and let live approach, and ignores the goblins to make there own camp. A fire is made to battle the cold, as the day was fridged and they expected the night to be worse. Watches are picked and they bed down for the night. Carilis takes first watch with Tycone, allowing a chance to communicate with Tycone some of the challenges he feels are forming in the last week. Carilius feels a sense of betrayal with Tycone not helping him when he went to fetch the bear meat for the wolf in the forest. That Tycone has been a steady companion in there travels for a long while now, and Carilius does not want simple things to impact their friendship. Carilius also expresses that Tycone has been the aggressor in many of the encounters when a more delicate touch is called for. Many issues could have been avoided if Tycone backed down and allowed communication to happen. Not everything is evil and holding ill will to the group, potential allies are worth taking time to make, and avoid pushing people into being their foes. Tycone, says little and mostly lets Carilus vent, as Tycone is not much for words; action is more his stein of beer. After a bit, the conversation drifts off along with the first watch.

Year 116 on Firthtag the 19th day of Kalt

Second Watch. Hellah and Malor take the second watch of the night. While there is some light conversation, nothing as deeply personal as the last watch, the half-elves are content watching and listening as the night slowly crawled by. Malor was just about to add another log to the fire when a sinking feeling; like his stomach had just fallen fifty feet and stopped suddenly, washed over him. At that moment it got cold, very cold the temperature dropped twenty degrees in a few minutes. He turned and locked eyes with Hellah who let out her breath which crystalized in front of her. The fire flickers out and darkness crushes in on them as they wake the party. Sodryn quickly casts light but it seems oppressed by the darkness. Its as if the darkness is a thick fog, swirling and pushing at the light as if it was the tide pushing against the land. The world seems devoid of color like it was muted in the darkness. The fire is completely cold, ashen wood with no trace of an ember. The snow they bedded down in was white, clean, now it looked as if it was shoveled off a walking path, dirty unclean. Broken, The ground seemed muddy and wet like the snow had turned to slush along the ground, and piled into dirty mounds on the hillsides that sheltered them. The sky has no stars, no moons; there were stars when they made camp. When did the clouds roll in, did the clouds roll in? Reality seemed bent. No insects, no sounds, no wind. Yet there is this sudden cold hold on the air around them, yet no wind. No sound. Wait, flapping. Wings? Coming closer. The flapping grows louder. A raven flys in landing in the center of the campfire, wood that had been on fire, now dead crumbling a little under the bird's talons. It looks at the group, turning its head slowly till it faces Sypha. The bird seems to look down on her, yet Sypha is up, standing several feet above the bird. It fixates on Sypha, as they lock gazes. Morr, Morr, Morr it caws. The Raven is off, it seems to have three faces, as Sypha focuses her vision. No just a single face, not one with two on either side of its head. Just one face. She thinks, but before reality catches up, the bird poofs into a ball of black smoke. It swirls and twirls, slowly but quickly gains speed. The transparency of the smoke shifts to opacity as the volume grows in seconds. Was it seconds or was it instant? No matter the smoke has formed now. Substance, it is a solid mass. A solid fifteen-foot tall mass, shaped like a man. His shirtless torso elicits admiration from Sypha who can't help but stare trance-like at his heaving chest. Visible muscles that signify masculinity, flex as his hands come to rest on his hips. This large male figure glares down from eyes covered with a mask of ash, no warpaint, or some other dark covering. A covering that was blacking out the skin around the piercing white orbs that were his eyes. The color of his eyes and the wavey thick hair that framed his unshaven yet unbearded face could also not be determined. Shades of grey were all Sypha could make out as the eyes looked through her, into her very being. The large figure began to speak, but it was not heard in the normal sense. Everyone's ears could hear nothing, no wind, no voices nothing. The words entered their mines, forcing themselves in and to be understood. Everyone heard the voice that made no sound, the man did not move his mouth to create an utterance. In hindsight, this all happened quickly, but inside the moment most everyone was lost to the unnatural feelings that stretched this event out. Sodryn, however, was having a harder time wrapping her head around the events unfolding. Something was off. Magic was not unknown to Sodryn, both arcane wonders and divine miracles happen in the world every day. This did not feel right, this reality was off, her head was spinning her mind was crashing. She was frozen as if a great horror was unfolding before her; with no ability to look away. a tear rolled down her left cheek as she watched. An overwhelming voice is heard. "Worry not, I am the one that granted your powers Sypha. You have progressed far in your absorption of knowledge, though you have higher contemplation approaching. You ennoble me with your work so far, and for this, I grant your petition for divergent arcane enlightenment. Further, I speculate you are ready to assist me." Morr communicates without moving his mouth. "There is, interred in this very valley, a relic of power. I sensed it five years ago, as it surfaced momentarily. It was however expeditiously shrouded and vanished from my perceptions. A curiosity, not worth my consideration until recently." The voice continues forcing its way into there conscious thoughts. "There is another that seeks this keepsake forthwith, something not of your mortal realm. Agents of this anomalous entity are engaged in its expedited resumption. To you, I task its rejuvenation and asylum from this preternatural force." Continues Morr. "Its entombment constrains it from my perceptions. The abettor of our adversary seeks it based on whispers of it being sealed beneath an outbuilding used in husbandry of field and beast. While they have been at exploration valley-wide, scrutiny of my former awareness of the fragment establishes it alongside the current population center you found yourselves at today." Echos Morr's voice. "You pursue a remnant of a fallen stellar mass. Discernible upon observation, the substance will exude warmth when corporeal connection is established. An emanation can be distinguished, a bloom of glossy light tinted the color of viridian." Listens Sypha, as Morr speaks. As Morr turns to leave, Sypha stands silent eyes unblinking, Malor steps forward asking "Are you the messenger of Morr, or Morr himself?" "I adduce the aforementioned awareness, to circumvent the hindrance a messenger could have in overshadowing the clarity of my communication. Such was the necessity which precipitated the conveyance of thee to me in the foreign demiplane of shadow, acquiescing communication unimpeded." was Morr's reply. This last statement resonates in the feeling Malor felt at the onset of this encounter. The sinking feeling he felt, was indeed there transportation from one plane of existence to another. Malor quickly follows up as Morr's attention seemed to be waining. "What is your intent for this artifact?" "This souvenir of the cosmic formulation is inconsequential to my purposed direction. to err on foresight, the aberration of your existence is in its pursuit directly. Analogously, with an apprentice of my dispensation readily adjacent to my fist, fecklessness bequeaths folly." states Morr offhandedly, again turning to leave. "Are we safe here..." Malor pauses, looking for words he sees Sypha still standing slack-jawed at the passing of this event. "...In this realm?" Malor finishes. "In the blanket of the umbra, I shelter you. Sojourn the night in my sanctuary, as no impairment will befall your sleep. Tomorrow voyage back over to your prime realm. Recover the artifact." As he turns around, his lower body begins to break up into smoke once more. He takes one last glance at Sypha and says: "I Depart but do not Abandon thee Sypha, my gifted endowment to you will report presently to expand your apprenticeship. It will guide you directly and appropriately." Morr finishes. With this last voiceless statement, his body finishes turning to smoke and drifts off into the windless night? The echoing noise of his thoughts gone, the group is returned to the stillness of the cold crisp air. Nothing can be heard until Sypha starts coughing and hacking like a cat with a furball lodged in her throat. After a prolonged coughing fit, she vomits out a ball of dense smoke. As the ball drifts toward the ground, it spins outward and creates a bird-like shape, a raven. The raven's wings flutter on its way to the ground further slowing the descent of this smoky creation. When it hits the ground, the raven ducks its head under its wings and tucks into a ball. Then it starts to grow. The shift from bird to women is suttle. The wings changed last, as they fall away it's a female form revealed as the wings turn into arms. She is ebony of skin much like the feathers she replaced. Her hair is long and the color of smoke. Across her shoulders is a robe topped with raven feathers. Her legs are tucked under her torso with one arm shielding her face from view. She seems distant for a few seconds before senses return to her and she peers out from under her arm at the world around her. The Raven women looking behind herself and for the first time sees Sypha. With resolve and sense of purpose, she quickly stands, spins, and faces Sypha. Just as promptly as it one fluid action, she then drops back to bended knee and bows her head in sign of respect. In a broken and clearly nonnative sylvan tongue, a single word is uttered. "Master." the raven says, eyes bent to the ground she stands to await acceptance. Sodryn continues to stare ahead shaking her head in disbelief. The mumbles of a prayer to her Goddess can be head by people beside her as she continues to be able to wrap her head around any of this new information. Syphas stomach now feeling quite again, starts to regain her composure as she looks at this poorly dressed girl. A light robe and sandals in the snow when the air is below the freezing point and has remained that way for most of this month. Besides the robe and sandals her loan piece of gear is a djimbe drum handing on a strap over her shoulder, on its surface is a tribal image of a raven. Beneath the robe and along her arms, legs, hands, neck, and face are tattoos. Writing covers this woman, writing of the abyssal tongue. Magical abyssal runes and lettering, diagrams of magical attention. The women it would appear is a living spell grimoire. Sypha try's to talk to the woman and feels as if her words make sense to raven women. However, the raven women's language back is in an obscure human tribal tongue from the far south. Clicking and pops with visual arm movements for expressions are echoed back to Sypha. Sypha ears can not make sense of the sounds, but her mind understands them nevertheless. This woman is to be known as Raven. Raven is her slave and Sypha is the Master. The group, quite off-put from the events of the night, tried to resume there sleep with limited success. Raven took up her drum and started to play it as she stared off into the darkness, the drum beats echoed off the mountains around them. Hellah noted to herself that the echos coming over the still air did not match the melody that Raven herself was playing. then drifted off to sleep. Pre-dawn the group awakes. The group gets up before the sun should rise. The sky is lighter now, but no starts or moons can be seen. There is no early dawn light casting the darkness away it's like the sky has been filtered and diffused laving a uniform amount of light and shadows everywhere. Sodrins light stone seems muted in the space creating far less light then light should. The color leeched out of everything around them. While the camp looked similar to what id did the night before, the landscape around did not. There was a river, but it seemed fouled and nasty. The water looked like an oily film was on top of it, and it moved slower with stagnant pools of water on its sides. The snow was heavily eroded down and the earth was slush beneath it. Nothing was fully black or white, everything fell betwixt a dark black and a light black. Sodryn has elected not to sleep last night as it was almost her watch anyways. The ever-pressing dread on this place and the unnatural acts that she witnessed lass night left her with a feeling of dread. She was sure that she was going to die, with no help from her goddess. This made her redouble her nearly silent prayers she was saying to her self. Tycone had gone back to sleep, alas he awoke to a simular since that today he would die. As a warrior, he accepts that any battle would be his last. Now however he realized that this would be his end. There is no escaping the fate he was dealt, so he would face the end. He quietly took up his weapon to march into the great beyond without saying a word. Sypha should feel elated. To meet ones diety should be an honor. To be gifted by his hand a glory. How could she not feel that? There was only emptiness, hopelessness. She is not ready to serve her god, she does not know enough, there will be disappointment and failure. Having a hard time getting up, to move, to go on with this overwhelming quest. How could she manage to meet Morr's expectations? Her body hurt with fantom pain, she felt as if the energy was drained as she ate a tasteless bit of dried fruit, no energy was gained. "Raven..." Sypha asked, "...how do we get out of here?" Even taking this effort seemed to push her energy levels down more. "That way, over there, she pointed, come we go, time is short the door will close." was Raven's reply to Sypha, nodding her head in the direction of the way out. The Raven stopped drumming and stood to leave. Hellah noticed the drum echos, continued for a bit longer, then one, two, three, four different beating rhythms stoped one after another. Sypha tried to musted a desire to do much more than walk out, tried to hold a conversation with Raven, ask about things. Raven did not seem to know anything and the effort to care was so great that Sypha fell silent and walked past the alien landscape. Malor and Hellah noted that the environment was not normal. The wind was still missing, there was a stillness to the air and sounds of insects and other noises of nature that you forget about as being so rote as to be moved to the back of your mind, to be dismissed without thought. Now however it was of the foremost thought. This places seemed devoid of life, joy, any sense of normality. The group trudged forward with Sodryn pushing to get out of here, Tycone walked with the dejection of defeat in his every step, and Sypha as if breathing was a herculean labor. Malor new they needed to leave here before the rest of the group feel to the despair that hung around them. The way downriver did not look like the way upriver, despite it being dark last night, and it being grimly light this morning. It was still off, decay heavy in the air. The walk back was not as long however which Malor was thankful. Time and Space and Distance are not always constant in a demiplane, how it connects to the mortal world is a hard thing to map, and in the folds of the shadows, things seem to change and adjust more than most cosmic spaces. Nonetheless, around the last bend in the river, they twisted and were standing at the outskirts of the town. It seemed like Pearford. If Pearford was a macabre version of the place they saw last night. Buildings seemed dislocated geometrically different seeming to have aged a thousand years and were falling apart. Overgrown by nature in places, and farm fields that seemed fallow and dead. Hellah noted that they seemed to be on the wrong side of the town. As if the town was a mirrored version and while the left to the north last night they approached on the south side of the town this morning. Movement was detected ahead around the buildings. Raven indicated that the doorway to the prime material plane was straight ahead. With that incomprehensible statement to the group as a whole, she pointed to a grave. An open grave 'tween two other graves, betwixt the homestead of the fame and its barn. Carilius notes to the group this looks like the barn that the whole town was looked in last night, it was however warped as if the rain and time had bent the wood it was built with. Sypha, informs the group that the way out is ahead, after asking the Raven if this is the best path. Raven's reply was not any more understandable but she points ahead. Straight as the bird flies. Between the buildings and a group fo twelve bodies shuffling around the barn. the bodies seemed to be the soul bound goblins Sodryn, Tycone and Carilius faced last night. These seemed to be milling around as if parked here without a direction, waiting for something to command them. The path to the grave "Guide me Raven" Sypha says. With that direction, Raven starts walking forward, strait as she goes into the mob of shambling goblins. It seemed she was without care or sense of the danger she walked into. Hellah follows, with Sypha a second behind not knowing any other course of action to perform. The rest of the group falling in behind; Raven makes her way through the crowd, it focuses in on the strangers to this strange land. All of the goblins turn, one after another, and start ambling into the path of the group. Tycone realizing this must be his last battle pulls up his weapon and swings at the first one to come close to him. Holding it, and two others at bay from the rest of the group. Raven, Hellah, and Sypha made it past this group, however, the distance between them stretches out as they begin to be attacked by the goblins. Carilius decides to go around the group of goblins and runs forward into the safety of the barn, figuring on the rear door as his way to bypass the undead. A good idea except for the two ghosts of a couple of recently dead road wardens floating in the barn. A battle breaks out, Malor holding the rear of the group starts shooting, Sodryn raises her holy symbol and turns a few of the undead while Tycone keeps his three at bay. The girls running in front toward the grave splitting the pack of goblin zombies up as the lunge at the unstopping group trying to tear flesh but only getting the edges of garments in the process. Carilius, on the other hand, takes the brunt of the punishment as the ghosts charge him and drop him in seconds; an act of slight revenge on one of there murderers from the night before. Sodryn forces herself to focus on healing; trying to keep enough distance to stay unengaged, but close enough to allow her prayers to be answered of healing to heal Carilius. She is successful and Carilius opens his eyes with the spirits floating over his limp body. Quickly he casts an arcane ward to increase his resilience and makes an expeditious retreat out of the barn and toward the grave. Malor fires arrow after arrow into any target that presents itself, while keeping his distance from everything and circling toward the house and the grave. Knowing her time was nigh Sodryn asks for her goddesses protection, and feels a momentary sense of hope as Shallya wrapped a divine light around her. The minions of the dead seem unable to touch her as they attack. Sodryn follows after Carilius, who is trailing Hellah and Sypha to the grave. Raven is now standing over the grave legs on either side of it, motioning to her Master to hurry up. Hellah makes it there first seeing a normal grave a few feet deep, she jumps into the grave feet first and is lost to the group's sight. Sypha close to her heals also dives into the open pit of the dead, also disappearing from everyone's view. As soon as her master is out, raven hops up, closes her legs and folders her arms close to her torso and drops into the grave with gravities aid, disappearing from view. Tycone seeing the success of his teammates, and killing one of the three goblin zombies pushes the others out of his way and takes off after Carilius and Sodryn. As Tycone clears the barn an intercepting ghost floats up toward him and crashes into him. They meld together causing the dragonborn to stager a second, he slows but his feet continue. His left foot hits the ground, then his right, then his left. Pivoting he turns to the left and changes course for Malor who is one of the more rearward party members. As Carilius and Sodryn reach the grave they find it empty as they jump into it. Malor had been clocking the ghost since the start of the battle and had put a fair amount of arrows into it. Now sensing it moring as one with Tycone if feared the dragonborn to be possessed. Dodging and rolling, spinning on his heel past the lumbering Tycones attempt to tackle him. Malor scrambles to right himself and then jump in the grave. The other side of the Veil. Darkness. Pressure. Coldness. Hellah had jumped into the grave feet first, but her orientation switched, she felt like she was falling forward. She instinctively put out her arms to brace for impact to the ground. Nothing. Darkness. Pressure. Coldness. Hellah realized her eyes are closed. Opening them, ouch dirt in her eyes. She opens her mouth to find dirt falling into it. She's laying on her back cold loosely packed dirt on her face, her torso. her body. She struggles to move. Panic sets in as she strains to move. Thump. Hellah is crashed into from below herself. A second ago she was laying in the dirt, covered in dirt. buried alive. Now a warth is below her. Hot breath on her neck. Cold and hard armor pushes into her back. Someone is behind her. The impact, all the same, had knocked her upwards. the dirt had losened, she was able to move a bit. The body below her pushing up on her giving her enough freedom to move. Her arms free they reached up and found the cool of air, of wind moving around them. Another thump, someone else below? Not that it matters, her hands find purchase on the sides of something above her, she pulls herself sitting up, the dirt falls away. Spitting the dirt out, and clearing her eyes, Hellah finds herself in a grave. The same grave she jumped into. Now, anyhow, she sees clouds and the pre-dawn light of the sun is stretching across the sky. Something wiggling under her. brings Hellah back to the present. As she climbs up onto her knees and out of the dirt Hellah reaches down grabbing Sypha by the hand. A tug and Sypha is free of the grave. Together they pull up Raven. Then Carilius, next Sodryn, and the grave stretches deeper still to review Malor. Malor feels hands reaching for him. They are clearing dirt that is falling into the hole that he finds himself laying in. Then a thumb from behind, someone or thing is behind him. A sharp pain as he starts to rise, the thing below him is jabbing him in the ribs. Malor clears the whole and shouts a warning to the group. Everyone backs up as a reptilian bronze hand shoots out of the grave. Followed quickly by the bulky and large form of a possessed dragonborn. Tycone opens his mouth to yell, to breath fire maybe? We will not know as Sodryn finishes a holding prayer freezing Tycone in his place at the bottom of the open grave. The ghost of the road warden that Tycone had killed near this very spot less than 10 hours ago; detaches from Tycone and begins to emerge from the shell that carried it back to this plane of existence. It to opens its mouth, but no sound is emitted for it is quickly blasted as Carilius completes an arcane spell. The weakened ghosts energy is pulled back down into the grave as it dissipates. Knocking the grave dirt from there bodies and hair, the group watches the sun come up before they attempt to cast a detection spell to see if they can find the item the road wardens have been seeking. Carilius searches the barn next to them, then runs through the town to the barn that was being searched and the wardens were digging up yesterday. While no stone was found a hay hook in the loft above was glowing, or more exactly a ring on the hay hook. Taking it they run to the next barn before the spell wears out. Again nothing was found. Three more barns are searched before Carilius starts to wear out from running from barn to barn. 6 Barns and no sign of any magical stone. Carilius, however, indicates his spell can not see through large amounts of earth, if the stone is buried deep they might not be able to detect it. Carilius says he is spent, and the group heads to the tavern in town. They walk back out of the last barn not seeing a group of farmers staring at them as they emerge from there barn. Just after Dawn in the Undermill Pub In the tavern, they get breakfast, while Sypha casts a ritual spell to help with communication. A spell that is written on Raven her living grimoire. Raven Who was perched up on the back of a chair, drops her robe and sits naked while Sypha begins the ritual. Raven does not seem to care about her nude body and continues to look around the room. Roni the barkeep, cocks an eye and shakes her head, but is otherwise unphased at the actions of the group. The rest of the bar patrons, a bunch of old farmers, turn and eat there breakfast enjoying the exotic floor show at there disposable. The rest of the group plans out there actions for the day. End of Session.