Of course, a beautiful woman... I would not deign to describe her... she was too transcendental for that.
- Hero, Sigholdt's Quori familiar reflects on the woman he saw abduct the party.
The next morning,
The Kaechaek Party waited for
Esmerae to come down from the mountain.
Peregrine tested her new Dancing Lights, but otherwise, it was a peaceful wait. Once reunited, they began the journey to
Sanctuary. On the way, Peregrine cast Armour of Agathys on the sandspeeder to keep it and the party cool and comfortable in the heavy heat of the sun. Esmerae cast Phantom Steed (looking like a wingless thestral) and rode it to scout ahead with her perception.
The journey was quite peaceful and lovely. Too peaceful and lovely. Sigholdt, not having a
Dream Trinket of his own, checked Mallus’ tattoos, noticing they had changed to pictures of faces/memories of individuals. Sigholdt alerted the group to the fact they were in a dream, confirmed when Malus saw syringes on his arm tattoos and Peregrine’s paper bird said ‘Fly High Little Sparrow’. The party attempted to recall leaving
Evecrest: Home of the Spooks - while some remembered leaving, Esmerae was the one to recall seeing the dead, broken forest of the
Shadewoods as they entered it, suggesting the party was likely asleep and dreaming inside the Shadewoods. This was a very bad situation. Hermione sent Jolly to scout the area, seeing that the surroundings were hazy/constantly moving a bit. Looking through his eyes, she saw specks of a group in the distance, but upon approaching them realised it was the party, making this ‘dream space’ cyclical, as the party stood in beautiful empty plains with cute animals and nature. When Sigholdt tried to summon Hero and Crumble, they didn’t appear, although a close copy of his weapons and armour were summoned. Sigholdt began a prayer to try and wake up while Peregrine cast true sight with her newly returned abilities. Esmerae prepped for a fight as Malus moved into the middle of the group to avoid potential dream threats. Hermione asked what would happen if someone died or slept in a dream, but no one could answer.
As Peregrine’s true sight activated, she began to see between blinks, the real world and the dream world. In the real world, she saw a desiccated forest, unconscious bodies on the sandspeeder, and could hear scratches near them. She also saw as Sigholdt’s body shot awake, with his Dilated Prayer successfully working. Sigholdt had called for aid in waking from Hero and Crumble. While successful, Crumble made sure to tear him through old, claustrophobic nightmares in the process of waking up, dealing some damage to Sigholdt. Peregrine tried to wake Esmerae when she was able to look into the real world by casting Message and screaming at her - this attempt was a success and Esmerae woke up! Esmerae and Sigholdt spotted starved figures approaching. Esmerae grabbed Malus and screamed at him, successfully waking him, though he was also dragged through old dreams and a flashback of Fionn’s death before waking, dealing damage to him as well. Quickly Esmerae also cursed a figure, seeing that they were feeble, broken and rotting - alive and not undead, but caught in a strange half-life. A group of these figures dashed to the
Sand Speeder as combat began, whispering in nightmare and climbing to try and reach the party. One of the whispers was: “We took too long, far too long, a gift from him is a gift scorned”. In response, Malus said, “We’re not a gift, please go away”. One of the creatures managed to bite Peregrine’s unconscious body, causing her to begin to wake as another failed to cast Hold Person on Esmerae (Esmerae’s response was to intimidate them with a stare and state “You’re next sunshine”).
Instead of waking immediately, Peregrine found herself in an empty grey space with dark blue eyes staring at her. It said “I pity you. I say that with nothing but respect” before commenting that Peregrine is a uniquely haunted creature and that it seemed fate had conspired to see her looked after and protected. The voice asked only that until they meet, Peregrine record her experiences and see how they match those that came before, while also giving her the gift of a potent protection against dreams and nightmares that haunt and harry her (a strange notebook). When asked if they knew her, the voice said they knew her ilk, and that they didn’t want to say where they were as Peregrine was always being watched, especially in dreams. Peregrine agreed to take the book and woke up, nearly dying in the process as she was dragged through her nightmares first. Realising the danger she was in, Peregrine misty stepped away after failing to intimidate the starving Unwaking attempting to bite her. Finally, she cast a scream via Message at Hermione to wake the last member of the party.
As Hermione began to wake, she learned that whoever cast the sleep on the party, had to have stayed within 5ft of the party for at least 8 hours before doing so. As Hermione woke, Malus transformed and started to attack the Unwaking. Hermione cast On/Off on the sandspeeder, failing to spook the Unwaking already on it, but successfully ploughing through the ones in front. Esmerae jumped off the sandspeeder as she began to stab at the Unwaking, whilst more climbed onto the sandspeeder, or chased down Peregrine. One failed to cast Hold Person on Malus while another failed to hit Hermione as Sigholdt intervened by using his cloak to magically shield her.
In desperation, Peregrine cast darkness on the sandspeeder to give her allies a chance to move away from the swarm of starved, Unwaking Witches without being attacked, before misty-stepping away to Esmerae for protection. Malus sprinted from the darkness toward Peregrine to try and help her, summoning a tentacle to wield his axe and claim the first kill of the combat. As Sigholdt healed himself, he jumped off the sandspeeder and started shouting “These cattle belong to
The Waking” - forcing the attention of all the Unwaking Witches onto him. Hermione cleverly used Ice Knife to hit all the Unwaking surrounding her, before slipping out of the darkness away from the hoard, as Esmerae joined Malus to kill another Unwaking.
Peregrine finally took the chance to heal herself a little, before moving around the darkness to cast Crown of Madness on one of the Unwaking surrounding Sigholdt. As she cast the spell, it triggered flames like the ones in her dreams to pour out of the eyes of the Unwaking target, as a crown made of 7 jagged separate pieces hovered above its head. She ordered it to target another Unwaking. Malus and Esmerae worked together to sweep house, easily taking out Unwaking Witches before them as Sigholdt continued to try and keep the attention of the Unwaking on him, calling out that “The Unwaking are Weak”. This unexpectedly triggered the weakened condition in all of the Unwaking! Spotting an opportunity, Hermione moved forward to cast Crushing Singularity, with Sigholdt as the centre point. This was to great success, forcing almost all of the Unwaking to fall and crowd around him, unable to escape and struggling to successfully hit due to their weakened condition. Unfortunately, after Peregrine used a twin healing on herself and Hermione, Hermione attempted to get the car going again, leading to a failure that caused one of the wheels to fly off.
As the Unwaking under Crown of Madness killed one of its allies, another nearly hit Sigholdt, only failing as Peregrine hit it with Silvery Barbs, granting Sigholdt advantage instead. Mallus and Esmerae continued to be the most efficient members of the party, killing yet more Unwaking as Hermione cast Chromatic Orb, finally hitting and killing a target in combat! With all but the final Unwaking under Peregrine’s control slain, Peregrine dropped her spell to cast a higher-level Guiding Bolt, sending her regards to it (as it had sent her regards to its brethren before killing them). Malus stepped up and with a final swing of his tentacled axe, killed the final Unwaking.
In the moments after combat, Peregrine went to fetch the missing wheel as Hermione sent Jolly up into the air to scout where the party were in the Shadewoods, whilst the party debated setting up camp, and Hermione revealed what she learned about how they had fallen into the dream. With true sight still up, Peregrine spotted magically concealed footprints glowing golden leading from the sandspeeder North, while also spotting floating/dancing lights trailing off in an Eastern direction. As she returned to the group, Sigholdt asked Hero how long they had been unconscious.
Hero confirmed it had been four days, and that a beautiful woman had appeared. She drove the sandspeeder and kept the party fed and watered, and Hero remembered the party being driven across a lake. When she had left, she’d told Hero and Crumble to behave before going ‘up’ and in the direction of the lights, Peregrine could see. With the party debating and stuck on what to do next, Peregrine chose to follow her instincts and began to walk in the direction of the dancing lights, leaving her own dancing lights to create a path for the party to follow if they chose to. Most of the party decided to stay, with Hermione messaging Peregrine to tell her that. Peregrine didn’t reply, too distracted by her path. Mallus decided to follow Peregrine to keep her safe, only proceeding to get instantly lost himself.
As Peregrine walked, she smelled blood and heard whimpering ahead. She reached a strange clearing where trees had been torn up and thrown - roughly 20ft by 20ft. In the middle was a 6ft by 6ft rectangular pit, with the whimpering coming from inside. Hesitant to approach, Peregrine tried to message the creature, asking if it needed help. It responded only that it couldn’t see, couldn’t get out, so dark etc. The creature was clearly in shock. Peregrine lowered a dancing light and asked if the creature could see it, but only got the same response. Suddenly, its panicked breathing stopped, and it didn’t reply when she tried to message again. Slowly Peregrine approached, seeing the pit was like the ones the Spooks made, with the same bars across the top, and a stone marker with red writing on it: “An eye for an eye. You took my daughter, so I will take your son Tadhg - Spook Apprentice Warder - sealed by
Mother Rache ”. As Peregrine recognised Warder’s name for the boy from Evecrest who had been sent to deliver messages about Fionn’s death to Dawncrest, she looked down to see his dead body. Warder’s eyes had been gouged out, with markings carved on his mutilated face. After a moment, Peregrine began to head back to the party, leaving a light above Warder’s pit, and whispering to herself in the language of the nocta mori as she felt something watching her.
Meanwhile, Malus found a crow. Casting Speak with Animals, he tried to speak with the crow. It stated that Malus was new and that it was fed by ‘
Mistress ’. It said Mistress was good and wanted to take Malus to her. However, when Malus protested and asked to go back to his friends, the crow agreed to take him back “For the Mistress”. As they walked/flew, Malus got permission from the crow to cast Beast Sense, allowing him to see through its eyes. In this way, Malus saw golden glowing footprints he hadn’t seen before, realising the Crow could see the hidden markings in the same way Peregrine had earlier. As they walked, Malus told the crow his name and chatted amiably.
Eventually, Malus and Peregrine both returned to the group, with Peregrine explaining what she saw, and Malus explaining about Mr Crow and the Mistress, adding that she might be coming and might like the group. When asked if the footprints Peregrine saw were the Mistress’, the crow responded with “They find, they lead, they go, footprints, mhmm”. Sigholdt spots eyes watching nearby and feels on edge. After questioning the crow a little more, the party learned that the Mistress doesn’t make people sleep, only eats the sleeping. Malus said the Crow said that Mistress would be sad but would forgive if they go. The party agreed it was time to go, it’s not safe to camp where they were. They also learn that Mistress is a sister, not a mother.
As Sigholdt started the sandspeeder, and the party climbed in, Crow sat on Malus’ lap. The party agreed to drive back toward the river and travel up to Sanctuary, using the river to stay orientated while in the Shadewoods. Before they left, however, Sigholdt turned to Malus, apologising to him before shooting Crow with an Eldritch Blast, killing him, due to his concern Mistress could watch the party through Crow. Malus is stunned/shocked, as Peregrine hugs him and Hermione gets Jolly to land on him and offer comfort. As the party drive away, they hear a voice shout/roar behind them:
“Those were mine!”.
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