The Forever Woods
The party began to research Gwendolyn Fairspring, an elven mage who had been doing research into a series of cults seemingly connected to Dane and the Staff of Sacrifice (see Entities). Most of her work had been mysteriously wiped from Regaclith University records, but they retained the location of her tomb in the catacombs. The party went to investigate and found an empty tomb, containing nothing but a book title The Forever Woods: Blu’s Very Bad Day and a scroll fragment that noted:
Dane worriedly revealed that that is near his hometown. Opening the book sucked the whole party into what appeared to be a children’s story. The party had been chibi-fied and their stats halved, except for Dane. He remembered this as a story he read as a child.
The party then met Penne the Wooh, a bear, who led them to Detective O’Harrier, a rabbit. Both seemed to recognize Dane, who apparently visited as a child. Dane had no memory of this.
O’Harrier explained that children used to come here, but that they had stopped very long time. The last person to be sucked into the magical book was Gwendolyn, who built a mansion called Mulligan’s Manor. Apparently, a character called Blu went exploring there and hasn’t been seen since. The party decided to investigate, accompanied by a cast of characters from the book.
Conversations with a flame spirit and some animate furniture revealed that the shadow of a child that seemed to be haunting the manor. We also realized that Dane was missing a shadow, and had been since we entered the Forever Woods. While exploring, the party found four keys that were used to unlock Gwendolyn’s study. In the study they found a bag and a cloak of eyes, along with Gwendolyn’s notes.
She details that she entered the book because it had strong traces of "the passing" in it. She had to pry the realm open because the last child to pass through it warped it somehow. The only way out she found ran a risk of destroying the world, which she refused to take. She also noted that she was worried her corpse could have the same affect, so she locked herself in her study to die.
Larkspur had uncovered her corpse, which, to their eyes, de-chibified everything. O’Harrier caught a glimpse and nearly went mad. Larkspur, concerned about breaking everyone’s mind, ran the corpse to the basement, pursued the manor’s suddenly hostile occupants.
As Dane, the last one out of the room, started to go, he saw the shadow child on the couch.
Meanwhile the rest of the cartoon occupants were evacuated and O’Harrier decided to look at the corpse, fully aware this risked his mind. He managed to process his suddenly photorealistic world without breaking, while the rest of the party noticed that Dane wasn’t with them.
Dane, reached out to the shadow child and receives memories that he had forgotten and/or suppressed (see: Shadow Memories. Most of the party raced their way to Dane, then raced back to the portal to the real world, which had opened when Dane had taken back his shadow. After fending off a rutabaga, a fire elemental(ish) and some spider chairs, the party, including O’Harrier, all evacuated through the portal which closed behind them. The book reappeared with them, and was given to Dane. Dane recognized the area the portal had taken them to as near his hometown. After some debate, it was decided that rather than returning to Dane’s hometown that day, O’Harrier would plane shift them to Regaclith . While they were talking, Dane mentioned that his magic felt strange, so Larkspur decided to take a look.
This caused them to see the time knife and get one of their metaphorical eyes split in half. They promptly lost a boatload of hp and went unconscious.
After making sure their resident warforged was stable, the party went back to Regaclith and got rooms at the Iron-Blooded Tavern. When Larkspur woke up several hours later, they first had a vision, then got stuck in a time loop. This caused them increasing psychic damage, as first Lux tried to slap them out of it (failed), O’Harrier tried to repair them (failed), and Alkizarr wiped their memory of shortly after the time knife (succeeded). This caused Larkspur’s newly gained eyes to close, stopping the time loop. Larkspur then relayed their newfound information.
The party (with the exception of the newly joined O’Harrier) then received the rings that Argent had beautifully crafted for them and that Alkizarr had enchanted. These rings all had different abilities, although all gave the power to exert complete command over Lux once.
Lux then went to Boop’s and built a go-cart.
