Chapter III: A Part Of You Is All We Know
General Summary
- We put the bones in a chest and take them to Kotan to give them to the Matriarch
- We return to Gael Fara's place, where Cecil makes the tower and casts Dream on Gretchen; she doesn't remember what Dengar wanted to tell him but they have a very sweet moment
- Thawsayer goes a distance away and eats the gamey-but-rich heart before everything goes black; Vergil watches him fall over and then disappear
- Thawsayer finds himself in a jungle in the body of a boar standing at 8ft at the back, eating an adult elk
- He tries to retrace his steps, but then his eyes roll back and everything fades to black
- Vivan scries on Thawsayer and sees the giant boar
- Cecil and Reno fly out into the forest after the boar; Thawsayer briefly comes back to consciousness while chasing down and killing into a young elephant as prey
- Cecil catches up to him, dispels the magic, and grabs the now-unconscious and blood-covered Thawsayer and brings him back
- We debrief and Thawsayer and Cecil clean up; we all head to bed
- In the morning, Gael Fara tells us the next prism is inside of Vivian
- Reno sends Vivian and herself to sleep, and Cecil casts Dream on the three of them
- Kilind is waylaid by fighting in the north
- Vivian, Reno, and Cecil chase after the memory of the frozen lake; they fall through the lake into a dark, cold room with a young Vivian covered in frost
- When Vivian tells her it wasn't her fault, the young Vivian gets mad and says that she shouldn't have come back; the memory wasn't hers to have
- Little Vivian doesn't to talk; she just wants to leave and be left alone
- She turns Vivian to ice and shatters her; the dream ends
- We try to figure out a way to Na to perform some kind of removal, or for Vivian to will it out
- There's a Brightseed in Munars, so we plan to head there after a brief stop in Kala'il
- In Kala'il, we meet up with Shion Gada and Cecil plans to make dinner for Melora later that evening
- Cecil makes a wonderful meal and takes most of it, along with Vivian and Reno, to meet with Melora
- Vergil and Vivian sell some potions
- Cecil makes painful small talk with Melora as she leads them to her new house, and she explains that the trees get overgrown every 50-100tj and people need to move out of the houses
- The dinner conversation is SO awkward; Melora casually drops some racist comments and explains how she wasn't close with her parents
- She was in the Noble Order of the Crown and had neices and nephews who died in the incident in the League
- She met Lily in the academy, where she got them in trouble (the academy beat them often)
- The Sumeyer girl's name is Ai
- After dinner, Cecil communicates with Ai and she seems very enthusiastic to meet him (she calls him "betrothed") but sending to her bounces back
- When Vivian tries to scry on her, she just sees the Shadowhand's Tower
- Cecil stays up all night trying to Dream with Ai, but gets nothing
- The next morning, he is shaky, and we say goodbye to Shion Gada
- We return to Melora's house and ask her about Ai's letter; Melora doesn't know anything
- Cecil and Vivian try to help Lily Ann with a merged magic spell; when Cecil tries to peer into her mind afterwards, he sees an exhilerating battle against Avians
- We windwalk up to Munars and walk to the middle of a lake; on the way, we identify Vivian's Death Mask, which, when placed on the face of a corpse, projects the events surrounding its death
- We reach the Brightseed, a triangular gash in the sky filled with blues and reds above the lake
- Thawsayer uses Fenestris to open the Brightseed and then lead it to shore
- On the water, we see a group of Northern Empire sailors dragging the struggling Lincoln Pelgram
- One of them, a bright dwarf woman with pale skin, pink hair, and ultramarine eyes in a red and black coat, says she's a fan of Cecil
- Cecil turns Lincoln into a river dolphin and he swims away
- The woman, Captain Wissen Cilla, says that she knows what we call ourselves, but she doesn't know our names; she thinks we must be gods and wants to know how we "get in and out"
- She keeps trying to get in our space, and gets agitated when we try to convince her to let us kill her; Cecil conjures the tower around her and we start combat with them
- Tentacles erupt from her back during the fight
- We loot the bodies, send Lincoln away, make some potions, and sleep in Cecil's tower
- A box message to Ai yields no response
- We step throigh the portal into Na, and find the cracks around Cecil are smaller and more lethargic
- When we think of something hard enough, it manifests; Reno warns us about permanantly modifying our bodies
- On the way to the storm, we hit an upside-down waterfall; we walk through it
- We meet a pair of Nixies; they ask us which Djanna's domain we belong to, but we don't have an answer
- They say they've seen the prism before, and it is in the prison of the Magistrate in the storm; it has taken many of them
- They can lead us to the prison, but won't go too close
- They say we can wait with them, because there is a Bargast in the area
- We follow them to their home, with pools of water and giant piles of salt rock (waterrock)
- We compare salts with them and show them the ocean with Cecil's mind magic; they are very grateful
- The nixie leads us through the village wall (of water) to a large white orb on the ground
- We go through a bunch of long, spindly maple-like trees that go on for about 15ft or so, interspersed with small ponds with stemless lily pads with odd shapes cut into them; when flipped over the underside resembles the topside down to the orientation of the gap (and when flipped over again it changes sides)
- The maple trees' leaves seem to fall infinitely
- The nixie leaves us at the giant sphere and tells us not to anger the djanna by lying
- We enter the jello-like sphere to find a orange-ish djanna on a white throne with three sets of arms; their name is Stratus
- They recognize Vivian, as they are a part of her power as an autumn djinni
- They also helped Vivian seal herself away
- Little Vivian is the Magistrate; she inhabits the prison as both the jailer and the jailee as a sort of penance
- The bargast creates the storm; to get to the prison, we must kill it
- Stratus tells us they will wrench open the gates of the prison if we kill the bargast
- A bargast is the incarnation of mortal fears; they feed on what terrifies you, and from your abject horror they draw their power
- The bargast has glowing red eyes and drips glowing red liquid from its maw
- It looks similar to a dog, but with long, spider-like limbs
- We find ourselves in a ravine with lava, and fight the bargast
- Thawsayer imagines it killing Vivian and Reno, and turns into the Yama-Kaiju for a turn
- When we kill it, the skin unwraps to reveal a dog collar with the name "Den" on it
- We see a large rectangular building with a stone brick fence with cast iron spikes around it; it has barred windows that emit snow
- We get over the wall and find the wall opened for us; we enter the prison
- We see a lot of bottle-sized centipedes scuttling about, and there is a constant blizzard
- There are many small cells with no doors, and each has a bucket and a wooden-board bed
- The centipedes say they ate dead humanoids
- There is a dead nixie in one of the cells that has signs that something burrowed up from the throat into its brain
- At the end of the hall are big locked iron doors covered in regenerating ice, and we try to find a way to melt it and pick the lock
- Vergil uses the sand to pick the lock, and we go through the door to find a bored secretary succubus, who tells us we are accused of disturbing the peace and multiple counts of murder
- We go around her and go left down the hall to find some Helthem (ice ruinborn) chained and being used as a battery
- In the other hallway, we find a bound succubus whom the Magistrate had collected for an odd job
- She can turn into people who we desire (Kilind, Gretchen, Gan), and is not from Ylch (the waking world)
- We free her, and then go free the helthem as well
- We enter the empty courtroom and decide to start our trial with the succubus (who has never been in a courtroom) as our attorney, dressed as Gretchen
- A Vivian in blue and white appears on the left bench, and the freed helthem appear in the audience/jury
- We move towards the right bench
- Little Vivian appears behind the judge's podium and accuses us of malpractice, murder, terrorism, disturbing the peace, and (worst of all) tresspassing
- Our attorney calls a surprise witness: a winter djinni that none of us recognize called Noon Feeld
- She describes how Day Park ran into a bar and explained how we helped her, and then she followed us into a portal and decided to defend us because we seem like cool people
- We have her give her spiel about our good character
- The prosecuter calls The White King Sin Tak to the stand, and he says we kidnapped the Green King and destroyed the city of Kier
- We call Reno to the stand as an expert on post-political crisis investigation, and she explains how we weren't to blame for Kier or the Green King
- The prosecution brings the memory of Mot to the stand, and he explains how he died and about The Pheonix group and what they did
- We ask why we were charged with malpractice; she says the charges can be mailed to us in 1-2 weeks
- We call Renge Thoma to the stand and get him to talk about Kier and the Order of the Red Fox; the cross-examining does not yield results and now we have three jurors moved by our words
- The prosecution calls Jimmiffer to the stand and has him talk about his dependency on us; he is too chill to help them in their case
- We call Chiira to the stand and have her explain our experience in Koton; the cross-examining fails and now there are five jurors of twelve swayed towards us
- The prosecution calls Lincoln Pelgram to the stand to talk about how we assaulted him and also saved him; the jury is at a seven out of twelve
- We call Gael Fara to the stand, but she does not remember Lincoln at all and his wholly unhelpful to anyone
- The prosecution calls Den of Woodhem to the stand to talk about how Vivian taught her to gamble; we are at nine out of twelve
- We call Gan to the stand, and Cecil is excused to the "time-out box", which is a tiny cubicle
- Gan explains about the Willful Crossing and our fight against the terrorism of the Phoenix; the prosecuter tries to get her to blame us for Har, but Gan gives her nothing, and another juror is convinced which makes it 11 out of 12
- Both the defense and the prosecution rest, and we go on recess
- We talk more with Noon and catch her up
- When we are called back in, Judge Vivian says that we are guilty (despite the jurors decisions), and that she will return Vivian's memories to her after she lets Judge Vivian kill all of us
- Cecil probes Judge Vivian's mind as she talks, and sees a cabin by a lake where Vivian and her friends used to winter; she and her friend found it and buried it near the chimney
- We teleport back to the lake in Munars and Cecil returns Vivian's memory to her
- Cecil sends a message to Ai asking if she's dead while Thawsayer and Vivian put the rift back in the middle of the lake
- Cecil sends a message to Vergil's father and plans to give him an hour to respond; if he doesn't, we will check on Melora and Lilly Ann and then go find Vivian's mother directly
- We teleport to Rhetae'ali, create a mound of ice cream, and steal a cutting of a tree
- Vivian leads us to her old home, and Cecil, Vergil, and Reno go to talk to Joyce Cassell, while Thawsayer, Noon, and Vivian went to get dumplings
- The woman who answers the door is a half-elf, pale white skin, six fingers; it's Vivian's sister, Celeste
- She mentions that the cabin is near Ultis, and that it's good to see Vergil and that Vivian should stop by and meet her and her kids
- Thawsayer, Vivian, and Noon find a dumpling stand and get mutton, goat, and crocodile dumplings, as well as some alcohol from a chameleon vendor named Grem
- After we meet up, Cecil goes shopping for a ten-pound chub for dinner (it's a beaut!)
- We leave to find an empty field and Cecil makes the tower for us to sleep in; Noon leaves to "meet up" with Grem, Vivian goes to meet Celeste, and Cecil and Thawsayer get wasted
- Noon goes to talk to Grem and they share some food and drink, flirt, and offer each other dumpling sticks; she spends the night there
- When Vivian visits Celeste, a very small, mischievous elven boy of around eight named Levian answers it before Celeste can get there
- There is also a solemn preteen elven girl named Naia
- Celeste talks about the difference in lifespan between she and her kids, and how their mother is traveling
- Celeste wants her to visit more often and take care of her kids once she dies
- Vivian wrestles a drunk Thawsayer and Cecil to bed; hijinks ensure
- In the morning, we teleport to New Berden, and Cecil runs to the bar to give the bartender some alcohol as repayment
- Then we windwalk to Ultis, a fast-paced town split along the border with lots of trade between lands; it's populated by many reptilians and dragonborn
- In the air fly beasts of burden that look like bat-lizards called yonkers
- We start heading towards the cabin
- A guard says there have been some portal attacks recently
- We scout ahead with Iamb, who is attacked by a yonker
- A very large portal opens in the distance and we rush towards it as people fall out
- Gan says it's getting worse, but she can still hold it; the Womb is getting bigger and throwing Nikia into the Rift might not work a second time
- We fight the cultists, sin weavers, and daemonist leaders at the crossroads
- We continue to fight; orange and blue sparks seem to be falling out of the cracks around Cecil, and eventually a finger in armor pokes through
- Cecil patches it up with a dragon spirit
- We defeat the enemies, and Gan says she's taking care of things and she'll see us in a few days
- We take a short rest
- We wake to find fingers with black armor emerging through the cracks around Cecil, and he teleports into the air
- A face with a mask pushes through the cracks; it is white with a black line diagonally bisecting it, and it is clad in vaugley imperial armor with spikes and a ring with a ball on top coming from its back and over its shoulders
- It has horns coming from the helmet around the mask, and when Cecil looks at it, his vision goes staticky and spotty
- Thawsayer flies up to meet him on birds; he catches Cecil as Cecil launches the masked figure across the river to impact the ground
- We all get on the birds and fly away towards the cabin; we almost make it but are hit by lightning on the way
- We slow the figure enough time for Reno to dig up the prism and for Cecil to open a teleportation circle, and rush through to New Hittia, closing the portal behind us
- We stablize Reno near the top of the pyramid-like palace in New Hittia
- We eat some sherbert from Noon until a coeth woman with dark skin finds us with concern in her eyes; her name is Zeitreia
- She brings us down to a room full of bunk beds; we take long rests and take baths
- In the bath, Amara cannonballs in; she calls us "Jeri's friends"
- She recognizes Cecil's picture of the Hunter; they desperately want to kill Amara and probably anyone with a Fell Star mark
- Amara points out Cecil's Fell Star mark and shows off her own; she decribes how Ava's mark appeared even with an artificial arm so cutting off the limb would do nothing
- She guesses that the darker ones stem from weirder dreams
- She berates us for our usage of Rifts Breaks
- She says Gael Fara probably won't find Gael Nagt via the prisms, but it seems like Styx is pushing us to the solution to the Nikia problem
- Fenestris was probably created with Nijei Denom, and should be able to close them when it's at four strings; cutting off the connection between the Womb and this reality
- We decide you probably can't conceive in a dream
- Noon follows Amara out to ask advice; she hands Noon an experimental scroll that could kill or incapacitate the Hunters as long as they are the closest to it when it activates (which could be any time)
- Noon comes up to Cecil when he's cooking to have him look at it
- We eat dinner, Noon washes Thawsayer's clothes, and we fall asleep
- In the morning, Zeitreia leads us to Lord Alucca, who thanks us and provides us with a way to Hai'iel and also paper for Cecil
- There are incursions and battles up north, but Alucca's organization has it contained for now, but it is a tenuous stalemate
- Reno decides to leave to join the fighting up north
- Noon dissociates in the throne room and has to be guided out to the portal; we step through it to Hai'iel
- The door is blocked from the other side, so we start to bust through it, knocking down a shelf
- Thawsayer spies through it to find a kobold woman in a bookshop
- She warns us against travelling to the Shadowhand's castle on the coast of the lake
- We leave and get to Hai'iel, a big city full of tall buildings, where we get supplies
- Cecil gives a lot of money to the first homeless person he sees
- We see a pair of guards chasing a street vendor wood elf with a cart as he runs down the street, and some other Noble Order soldiers milling about
- Noon attempts to stop him, but he takes a bag from the cart and runs; we ditch the guards and meet up outside the city to get horses
- We come across a river and try to cross it, but come across a river otter Ancient One that drops a cut, teardrop-shaped orange crystalized paladium
- Cecil attempts a Dream with the succubus, but it yields no results
- We tree-travel to Jimmiffer and hand the prism over to Gael Fara
- Cecil finds out that the scroll Amara gave us is a timed bomb of anywhere from 3-14 seconds that will hit the closest person to it once it's placed on the ground
- We enter the prism and start solving the puzzles; there are cracks in the air growing around us
- A hand comes through the Rift; Noon chops it off and a chalky powder puffs out as Enel the Hunter emerges
- We fight them, and drag them next to the set scroll
- The Hunter teleports on the other side of the wall, and Vivian charms him to stay where he is
- We all back away and the scroll goes off, imploding into a snowy hole to Tslan from which chains shoot out and drag the Hunter inwards; Noon covers him in ice cream as he goes
- We get the string and leave
- The cracks around Cecil have disappeared; the new string allows Thawsayer to open small portals to a new pocket dimension
- Gael Fara tells us the next prism is in a volcano on Cloudfall; she can remember around 2.5 million terrij and has seen a genocide that has covered at least a quarter of the galaxy we live in
- We gather up the horses and prepare the tower for the night
- The next morning, we wake to a knock on the door to find Sumire Ai, who throws her arms around Cecil, delighted that they can now get married
Report Date
21 Jul 2024
Primary Location
Secondary Location
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