Chapter II: A Fire Burns Although The Spark Is Gone
General Summary
- Cecil looks horrific in the Dream spell; he fills in Reno (who's in Maniglion) and Killind (who is en route to the Archipelago)
- New Hittia, Novi, and Republic City all got hit simultaneously by portal attacks by Broken Mirror factions like New Berden
- Reno says that the violin is the personal artifact of a Cosmic, which is an object of great power and it usually gives a specific degree of control over a certain domain like light or plant growth or life itself or whatnot
- She explains that being Unwritten means many things, but the most important thing is that it prevents many powerful creatures from noticing you; your actions cannot be known before they happen
- Reno asks if Cecil has heard of Kai or Ambrose!!!! not Yuki though ahahaha; he has not
- The next morning, Cecil Identifies the violin as a Fenestris; when Thaw points Fenestris at one of Cecil's cracks, he hears a melody in his head that he thinks he could move the crack with
- Jeriqo confirms that the caretakers of Cecil that are dead are the elven couple he called Aunt and Uncle, and not the Coeth couple
- Gael Fara tells us there is another prism in the far mountains to the southeast of here along the coast; for some reason she hasn't been able to locate the other prisms before now
- We head out through the jungle until we hit a pomello orchard on the edges of Kala'il, and then into the city proper
- Vivian wants to explore, so we head into the city and find a night market
- Cecil goes off on his own while the other four get a room at a tavern; when we enter, it's pitch black
- Shion Gada is the owner of the Fallen Blade Tavern, and Warui Hito is there as a Painter, going by Shion Hito
- Cecil finds the area where he and his neighbors lived completely abandoned and ransacked, with squatters living in them
- He Sends to his birth parents asking what happened
- Cecil's mother says to meet them at the Great Central Plaza tomorrow morning
- He heads back to the inn with fistfuls of kumquats and meets Shion Gada, then gets ready to make breakfast in the morning
- Cecil uses Dream again on Reno, and accidently loops in Lincoln Pelgram
- He asks if Reno recognizes Nikia, who says that it was a good idea throwing them into the Rift, but the Quantum Eye means that they can probably make their way back
- When he asks about the corpses from the catacombs, Reno says they were leftover from a crisis before our time
- The Dream starts to unravel as Lincoln's arms and ears and face start to grow out of the landscape; his whole body submerged in the dirt except his arms, which are in the Ocean
- Cecil makes poor Lincoln some arms
- Reno says not to give up on Loro (or at the very least to try and retrieve the body), and that she isn't sure what the mask is besides maybe an encantada
- Cecil gives a haphazard apology to Lincoln, and then ends the Dream
- We buy rations on the way to the Great Central Plaza
- Cecil meets his mother, a heavily wrinkled wood elf woman named Melora Ives
- She takes us to where she's staying, in a small room in a building around the plaza; only Cecil and Vivian can come in with her
- Lilly Ann, Cecil's other mother, is laying hurt and unmoving in the bed; she will die soon
- Melora mentions a girl Cecil had been close with before he ran off that he doesn't remember; a tiny snow elf from the neighboring Sumire family that she was sure Cecil would marry
- Sumire Setagaya and Sumire Minato died of the Chill the first time it came through the area; a long time ago
- Cecil leaves behind some money and we return to the inn for breakfast; we go shopping
- On the way out, we stop by the grove where the Sumires are buried amongst great cypress trees
- We stop by the Sumire house one more time to get a doll before we leave town
- Cecil goes through another crisis, this time about how young he was when he left home
- Cecil updates Reno and Kilind, and tells Melora that once he saves Gan he will introduce them
- Vivian scries on the slim and delicate yet confident snow elf woman, who looks the same age as Cecil and wears a white robe with blue accents and carries a parasol; she is sitting in the back of a wagon driven by a young local great dwarf man as it travels northeast down a road in the rolling prairie of the central Empire
- Vivian and Vergil notice that the woman's shadow is growing longer and longer towards the viewpoint; we end the scry, but Jeriqo catches the shadow on her naginata and says that it's a vestige of "a really annoying individual" called the Shadowhand, who tends to stick them on people to keep tabs on them
- She says that when the Shadowhand began operating, the snow elf still probably would've been with Cecil
- She stabs the shadow with her elongated fingernail and it dissolves into ash, similar to the way the Phoenix members did
- Cecil uses Dream to hang out with Pepper the dog!
- Vivian sends us through a tree to her house near Klaska'in and we chack on the garden
- We head over to Thawsayer's workplace and house, and then the Bowl Place! while Cecil continues looking for spell stuff
- We leave towards the mountains and make it to the outskirts of Hai'iel before making camp; as Cecil goes to sleep, the cracks get larger and the tower starts to fade
- Cecil manages to close them, asks for Kilind's advice, and speaks to his boss Dengar Sands via Dream; he has a brief flash of himself in a snowy field before he wakes up
- We head up into the snowy mountains to search for the prism and find a small tower, but wolverines burrow through the snow to latch on to us
- We hear a whistle as we take to the air in various forms
- Jeriqo doesn't want to go to the tower for some reason
- We head to the southwest that night looking for the blue-eyed beast
- Vivian uses commune and finds that she and Vergil glow purple under the spell, Jeriqo is blue, and there is a red mass further southwest
- Cecil accuses Jeriqo of being a vampire; she cannot turn into bats but her father can
- Iamb and Credo scout towards the red area, and find a rocky area that "felt weird", like they were in danger
- Cecil tries to pull all of us (and Kilind) into a dream, and all of our memories seem to combine; we attempt to wrangle control and focus on our previous dreams about the prism
- Cecil remembers mountains similar to those around Kala'il
- When Vivian tries to remember the dream about the frozen river, we find a second Vivian, who asks why she is here; this is not for Vivian, it's theirs
- Second Vivian ends the dream, and we wake and explain to Jeriqo
- In the morning, we tell Chanhe where we are going and head off towards the southwest
- We hit a cave and start to feel an increasing sense of anxiety; Jeriqo especially looks nearly feral, with chittering jaw and sharpened claws
- Jeriqo recognizes the feeling as coming from a starving Reaper, a mindless cannibal; it can be weakened by the light of the Azure and killed by silver, cherry wood, holy water of Dunaer, and constantinium, and it can also heal
- Reapers eat the heart, eye, brain, liver, blood, and bone marrow
- We try to convince the Maiden not to do the ritual on the eclipse so that we might kill the beast while it's weak without having to worry about Shinde
- She agrees to push back the ceremony (as long as it can still happen during the full eclipse), until she hears of Cecil's death
- We plan to travel to Klaska'in, get some cherry wood, awaken a cherry tree if possible, and bring it with us to fight the Reaper
- We tree-travel to Vivan's house and pick a cherry tree, as well as discussing wives
- Cecil goes to the witshop to finds the uncle of the woman he met last time; he suspects Cecil of being an undercover cop
- Vivan begins to awaken the cherry tree Jimmiffer
- Cecil has hidden underground bunkers around the Indi outskirts
- In the evening, Cecil Sends Ulima a message
- He tries to patch up the cracks, but finds his efforts are doing less and less
- Jimmiffer awakens and is a delight
- Cecil brings Kilind and Vivian into a Dream; he learns that he isn't really sleeping when he casts the spell, and he could suffer the consequences
- In the morning, we return to Kotan along with Jimmiffer, and Jeriqo reveals that the holy water might not work as well as we hope as it wasn't made by someone devoted to Dunaer
- Cecil gets insecure about his age again
- We introduce Jimmiffer to the Maiden and get the holy water
- We tell Chiira what we plan to do and Cecil sets out his will
- We head to the cave to set up traps and scout with Trochee; we see a high or dark elf individual with blue fur clothes and an immaculate cape saturated aquamarine eyes kneeling on the ground, and then Trochee's vision cuts off
- The cave is empty except for red glowing crystals called Red Luminite (a moonstone) that gives off an effect like the Crimson
- The Beast comes out and explains he has exiled himself so he doesn't hurt people; he cannot control himself and he hopes we can kill him
- He starts to transform, and we attack; he grows fleshy bladed tentacles out of his back and attacks, and the battle ensues
- While fighting, the Beast grabs some Red Luminite from the cave and stabs himself and Jeriqo; the Beast melts into rats
- We kill the Beast, tell the Maiden and Matriarch, and Cecil tries to help Jeriqo take the crystal out of her stomach, but she pops into smoke first
- When Cecil's messages her, she says her failsafe was activated and she is back in New Hittia; she'll be back in a few days or will send someone else
- We take the corpse (sans magic cape) back to the village and the Maiden identifies it by a strange scar on half of its neck
- Vivian stays behind to clean up (aided by Credo and Spite)
- Chanhe announces that the village is saved, and we go to the longhouse to tell the Martiarch and Shinde
- We gather Shinde up to eat dinner with us; Chiira has fallen asleep from the stress of the day
- Rusut and Ekashi meet up with us and thank us, and tell us that Chanhe wants to talk to us
- We have dinner, and Cecil sends Iamb to deliver Jeriqo's stuff to her
- Thawsayer carries Shinde home after she falls asleep, but is stopped by Chanhe, who gives him something that belonged to Kamui's father (Thawsayer's grandfather)
- It's a dried humanoid heart, and he says to eat it one night when I'm in the wilderness and in a safe place
- The next morning, Cecil takes a portal to Jeriqo, where he finds a high-up tiered pyramid-like tower overlooking a desert city surrounded by a sand-mud wall; we are now in New Hittia
- We are immediately confronted by several guards in baggy desert clothes with spears
- We try to communicate with them, but are distracted by Lord Alucca appearing behind us
- He takes us down into the tower to Jeriqo's room, where she says that Alucca is her father (!!!)
- We talk Cecil down from conjuring a pool of blood, and leave Jeriqo to rest while we go back to the village
- We rest for the remainder of the day while Vivian does some alchemy and Cecil writes some spell scrolls
- Thawsayer and Vergil talk to the Maiden, who says that she and the Matriarch were planning on giving us the prism
- We draw on our hands over the Fell Star mark
- Cecil attempts to use the Dream spell on Gan, but it doens't work and he wakes with a lag to his limbs
- We go to the Maiden, who leads us to the tower and unlocks it
- Inside is the same altar Thawsayer saw in his dreams with his mother, and we take the prism from it
- As we say goodbye, a tentacled portal opens in the sky above; we move it outside the town with Fenestris and go to deal with the cultists and Sin Weavers (the spider-things from the Womb) coming out of it
- As we fight, a large disk appears in the sky with a dark armored figure appears; both are covered in tiny dark disks like scales; Gan vaguely claims they shouldn't be a problem yet
- The strange creature in the armor controls the scales and sends them to decapitate a cultist; beneath the armor we see gray skin or clothing
- We kill the rest of the cultists
- Cecil shoots lightning at the tentacles in the portal; it squeals and a bell rings as it recoils from holding open the portal
- Gan says her organization is having trouble because they didn't plan to be attacked in this way; she cannot tell Cecil any more details
- The armored figure nearly dies in one hit from a spider, so we take pity and teleport him away and be healed
- After we defeat the sin weavers, the armored figure reveals herself to be Reno
- Thawsayer and Cecil go back to town to reassure the villagers and say goodbye to Shinde; Thaw's aunt hoses him down to get the blood off
- One of the groups like the one Reno and Gan are apart of is Sable
- We try to calm Cecil down from a panic spiral and teleport to Rhetae'ali, then head off towards Gael Fara
- Kilind says she is caught up in something in Tipre when we update her about our location and heading; she will be late
- We camp out in the woods with the tower; Jimmiffer eats a peacock
- Vergil talks to Thawsayer about Grampy's heart, though Thawsayer only vaguely refers to it
- Cecil is not doing well, but he finally falls asleep
- Vergil and Vivian are awoken in the middle of the night by an Onyin coeth guy trying to throw a grappling hook at the top of the tower; they catch him and take him in
- He is a terrible liar, but he claims his name is Craig and he is an advanced fishing student at Indi
- Cecil and Thawsayer head out to search for his friends; we find a group of cloaked figures and they run from us and try to shoot us
- We catch a high elf, who swears at us and tries to attack us and says he would gladly die for the good of his people (what??) so we throw ink in his face and drop him back with his friends
- Back at the tower, we find that Craig has a curse set on him and dispel it; he is terrified of the other group and begs us to take him away, so we quickly teleport to Indi
- We send Jimmiffer (guided by Iamb) to Gael Fara's house
- Craig is a Tracker and was approached by a group of elves (some Daemonist cult) near New Berden/Old Republicana
- Their leader was a weird stoic half-elf stick of a man who was in a lot of meetings named Lansen with a northern kingdom accent (maybe Ultis?)
- We set up Craig in ther library with supplies and a cover story as a biology student, and then go meet with Ulima to fill her in
- There have been two cultist attacks on Indi
- We go to the scroll emporium where the tender thought Cecil was dead (they grieved!), Cecil's students to tell them their papers are still due (they are less enthused), Vergil's professors (they hug and kiss him goodbye), and Cecil's house
- We meet Gretchen, who Cecil neglected to contact since going into the Womb, and she shakes him and yells at him before we explain everything that's been going on and catch up
- We teleport back to Jimmiffer and get to Gael Fara
- Thawsayer asks her if she knows anything about the heart or the sacrifices; she does not
- Cecil gets drunk on wine before Vivian cuts him off, and we prepare for the prism the next day before going to bed
- Cecil Dreams with Ulima, and though she doesn't know anything new about the Sumeyer girl, she says she considers Cecil a son and he can call her his mother!
- In the morning, we cook some breakfast, dissect Cecil's most recent harrassment, and enter the prism
- Inside the prism is a room covered in muddy patches sprouting plant life and some bones
- There is the familiar puzzle with the plasma ball and the currents (this time with a moveable button that activates a square tile and a circle tile with memory), and we move through the rooms
- In the second room, we find a Ghast that screams in Thawsayer's head before moving to the next room, which is teeming with them
- We destroy them and move on to the last puzzle, where we solve it and the floor starts to depress (the platform is covered in webbing then we find ourseves unsolving it against our will as children skeletons animate and come towards us
- Spiters (spiders made of hand bones) come out of the webbing and try to bite us and control us via webs; the skeletons are controlled by them
- One of the Spiters is a little larger and has a skull for an abdomen this is a called an Onryo (rare, tends to emerge where people die and are particularly unhappy about it)
- We collect the next string of Fenestris, which can create Rift tears, and all of the bones we can find (about eight bodies)
- We exit the prism and report back to Gael Fara
Report Date
29 Feb 2024
Primary Location
Secondary Location
