Chapter IV: All The Things We've Shared And Seen
General Summary
- Cynthia speaks to all of us and tells us that Lord Lorenzo has woken; we meet outside the manor and disguise ourselves as Bianca and the Empire representatives
- When we approach Lorenzo's door, the guard knocks on his door, and in a panic we send the guard off and make all but Hyacinth and Bianca (Esya)
- We get him into his room to discuss things privately; he had told Ayaka and Denji what happened, but hasn't gotten a response
- He asks why Hyacinth is asking questions; he isn't supposed to do that -- is he malfunctioning?
- He doesn't know what the Perception Engine does or what to do; Esya tells him the plan is being pushed back a bit, to which he protests that it must happen today or early tomorrow
- We lead him to Denji's room, who is surprised to see Bianca, as she was off the system; we decieve him into thinking there is something wrong with Bianca's programming and that Iraira sent us (he seems to dislike the Court Frost tool)
- He goes into his room to retrieve a glowing blue dagger from within his mattress, and notices Mr. Squiggles poking around, and attacks him
- Cecily is poking around invisibly in the room and notices two swingfires, a long case, a ring, and mirror with runes written on it
- As Denji attacks Mr. Squiggles, Esya Feebleminds him, and we attack him
- We continue to attack Denji; Vignette steals the swingfires from Cecily and threatens her with them while Cecily tries to disarm her
- We kill Denji
- Vignette tells us about Argenthia and the Shadowhand
- We have "Iraira" ask his dead body questions:
- The Perception Engine, in its current configuration, can affect the emotional state of a large mass of people in a radius of about 300ft
- They are working with Lord Lorenzo and the Great House Vatzi, the members of Court Frost that are here (such as Iraira and Amiya), several hundred Stolen Soldiers, several hidden Argenthi mages, and several compromised members of Great House Relasi and merchants (including Bianca and Sindant)
- Their goal for this phase is to wait for his death and to cause infighting following the lack of the Day 3 Event using the Perception Engine
- They can relay commands to hidden Argenthi mages, who can control the Stolen Soldiers
- Denji is the one calling the shots at the party
- We plan to destroy/stop the Perception Engine before noon (when the Event was supposed to happen)
- Vignette and Salvatore dump Denji's body in the attic, and the rest of us meet them at the stage (and send away those that were there)
- We investigate the Perception Engine; magic flows throughout and is building slowly
- Vignette removes the Eye and we carefully take it back to the Lady's room; it appears like a beacon to those sensitive to magic
- The Lady has regressed to her previous state of strain, and the spread of glass and taste of salt has both increased; she feels hungover
- Vignette gives the swingfires to Salvatore and Tahmina
- Vignette and Tahmina siphon off some energy from the Abyssal Eye and put it into Mr. Squiggles so that it is small enough to be put into a demiplane to hide it
- Mr. Squiggles grows afraid, and then glows brighter and brighter before he pops
- As the explosion dies, time slows down
- Where Mr. Squiggles was is a floating sphere of glowing red energy, and the Eye, still in Vignette's hand, rests at the entrance to The Impossible Room
- We are unable to move or speak as five figures walk through the portal:
- Ir, The Doctor: a gaunt humanoid figure of about 7ft tall; he is wearing a canvas dress, matte black gloves, and a bird-like mask
- The Watcher: a silent figure wearing a large cloak covering their whole body
- The Soldier: a young preteen girl wearing a dull greenish-brown tunic and a large spherical helmet with long blonde hair who speaks brusquely
- Dio and Dia, The Dealers: a pair of twins with straight white hair and blindfolds who always speak in unison and hold eachothers hand
- They also make mention of The Servitor, Ü, of whose batch Shump is in
- Ir examines the explosion sight and says that we are of The Watcher's "batch", though Cecily is not
- Dio and Dia take the Eye from Vignette, and The Soldier pulls Tahmina and Vignette out of their bodies; they are now able to speak and move about
- The Soldier pulls Shump Ump's transparent spirit (or at least, the memory of him from within the Eye) out of the ongoing cat explosion; he remembers nothing after becoming a head in Atlantica
- They make mention of certain laws of existance that they cannot break, like taking their masks off or interfering with us beyond some very specific ways
- The law is what allows them to appear here to strike a bargain; our lives are the only things they can offer us that would be equal to what they want in return
- The excess energy from the Eye collapsed Vignette's demiplane, and the denizens took the opportunity to come here because if they hadn't, then everyone in a 2.5mi radius would be dead (consciouness completely obliterated by the pulse of energy, only Tahmina and Vignette's bodies will be disintegrated)
- They offer to take the Abyssal energy, the piercing of the Rift, and the Eye with them when they leave, which would spare us
- Ir leads Shump Ump back through the portal, claiming that they'll take him home, and The Soldier pulls the rest of us out of our bodies
- They follow the Master; they do as the Fell Star commands, and he wants the Eye
- They seem to recognize the name "Shadowhand", but do not respond when pressed
- We accept the deal, and the denizens disappear through the portal; everyone wakes in their bodies save Esya, who, having had wandered through the portal with the Watcher, sees thousands upon thousands of eyes and tentacles before waking back in her body
- The Lady has seen the Watcher in Novi (or Haven?) tap someone's shoulder and has heard of the twins; she isn't thrilled to see them again
- Salvatore and Vignette rest in the Lady's room while Tahmina, Esya, Hyacinth, and Cecily head to confront Sindant
- Sindant behaves strangely when confronted; the whites of his eyes turn red, he seems to be drooling, and his eyes start drifting different directions
- He seems confused, and says he's been working for "Booker" for three... something (he can't remember the unit of time)
- He says he's still reeling from the attack yesterday, and the death of the Duchess (Tahmina was there, right? She told him about it, he claims)
- He suddently focuses in and whispers, "They're here. Kill me."
- Esya obligingly stabs Sindant through the eye to the brain; we neaten up his body and head back to the Lady's room
- Vignette takes the others (invisible) to the Duchess's room to find it empty and bereft of most of the guards
- We check the opposite room and find an old cat named Davy and Master Chair Retribution Mossex, an elderly coeth who doesn't question our presence nearly enough
- We find contracts exporting wine everywhere except the Empire
- In the stage room, we overhear Iraira talking to a Stolen Soldier about "Argenthi", "coming, "dead", and "Shadowhand"
- We find the Duchess in the Lady's room, where the glass has spread even more in branched lines; neither is wearing a veil
- Disappointed, the Duchess says, "I told you not to," to the Lady; the Lady appears scolded
- The Duchess caresses the Lady's face and says that she's let her nemesis do this to her; there is a lot of sexual tension
- She calls the Lady Amara!!
- Amara says that she's pushed herself too far, but she has a plan; we sit on a patch of Rift that is horribly pockmarked
- She says something may have attached itself to Vignette, and it's bringing something dangerous here
- The Lady says she is going to try and bind the "being" and send it to Tsaln (another plane) while we hold off any attacks from it or the Argenthi
- We decide to use Vignette's Manor for Amara and The Duchess's plan
- We investigate the Stolen Soldiers in the shed; they seem lethargic and slow to respond, but they have pulses
- Vignette tries to dispel the magic on one of the Stolen Soldiers, and it seems to work for a brief moment before the daze returns to her eyes
- Hyacinth and Esya go to get some padlocks from the manor, and find the Avaroki and Jenmind physically fighting; attempts to calm them lead to being counterspelled by an unseen force
- We suspect this is the work of the Perception Engine (or at least the infighting that Denji had mentioned)
- Tahmina, Vignette, and Cecily investigate Sindant's body (along with Vignette's friend Marie, who is a translucent Victorian woman) and perform brain surgery; they find nothing in the injection site or by the ear (like Dyn had)
- Hyacinth manages to calm down the quarrelers and the guards take them to recover separately; the Avaroki princess explains that there was a lack of respect shown
- We meet back up by the Stolen Soldiers and scry on Iraira; he's in the elves' bedroom with Amiya and Ayaka frantically looking for something
- Ayaka opens her mirror and talks to it inaudibly; we pick up "portals are missing", "close to failure", "Denji is dead", "target is resisting at higher levels than anticipated", "abandoning secondary directives", and "begin purging personell relating to the secondary directive"
- After a few minutes, a high-ranking argenthi (blue/gray outfit and bird mask) pops in next to Ayaka and hands her a snake egg-shaped device with a concave indent; it glows red from the inside
- Ayaka presses her thumb into the indent and drops it in between Iraira and Amiya; it flashes bright red and completely evaoprates Iraira and almost takes out Amiya (and then they finish her off)
- The smell of burnt hair drifts through the scry
- The Duchess says she doesn't think she will die now, instead, we should protect Amara
- Lord Lorenzo is dead
- Salvatore steps out for a private conversation with Amara and then disappears
- Amara gives a beautiful speech about how she and her husband Alucca trust each other to stay alive
- We plan for the next day, where the Lady will pull whatever appears into Tsaln and the Argenthi attack
- As we go to the Duchess's office (Vignette, Tahmina, Cecily, and Europa) and Lady Ensfri's room (Esya, Amara, Hyacinth, and Salvatore) to sleep, Salvatore rejoins the group with a handful of cut-up curtains citing a fashion emergency
- Vignette dreams of stabbing someone repeatedly, and then wakes to find herself standing in the antechamber holding Furantia, or the Vampiris Expirata, covered in blood; Amara has been stabbed and injected with a little piece of a god thought long gone (later revealed to be half of Rabus)
- She explains that she needs to cut off her arm (soon), which will draw the thing to us
- Salvatore shows up in a full bodysuit made of curtains
- We prep the Manor and Hyacinth starts to cut Amara's arm off, but then time stops and begins glitching
- Amara says she might've underestimated it, and then the world turns white before she changes into a giant angry white porcelin doll with green hair and a puffy dress (Amara, the Warrior)
- It has four porcelin arms emerging from the chest -- the top two hold a flute, the bottom right holds a rapier, and the bottom left holds a set of scales; the taste of salt is overpowering
- A portal appears and blue chains shoot out of it to try and grapple the arms of the doll and pull it in
- Portals appear everywhere as Ayaka, the Argenthi, and the Stolen Soldiers pop in
- While fighting, The Witch of Glass changes to the Diplomat, the Mother, the Performer, and the Lover
- The Argenthi mages start praying and chanting, "Felthysdottir!" at The Witch of Glass; those who don't turn to glass
- After a long battle, the Witch of Glass is sent through the portal to a barren, desolate landscape of ice and snow; red and blue butterflies fly out of the portal to land on Europa
- After we return back, the bodies are discovered, the machines unearthed, and Amara grieved
- The Duchess announces her son Stiten
- The group go back to their lives; Salvatore of Court Locke is sent around to spread the word of the Argenthi to the Empire and the League, Tahmina and Cecily return to their lives as merchants, Esya continues to travel as a bard (and kills some people), Hyacinth resumes his role as personal chef for Lady Ensfri, Europa leads a movement in Jenmind against the exploitation of giants by nobles, and Vignette goes on many more adventures with her friends
Report Date
08 Apr 2024
Primary Location
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