Lannior is able to shake off something in his head, and his arrow strikes true.
Prisim's acid fails to hit the hag, and Pau, Meredith and Gailen similarly struggle with connecting with the creature.
The evil looking creature brings her hands together, and waves a taunting "good-bye" to Pau and Meredith.
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"A green hag...I need to get serious."
"But it's much weaker than a normal one, like we're fighting its shadow. Don't let it steal your strength with its claws."
"Great, it turned invisible again. The gods mock me for not asking for Faerie Fire this morning..."
"And that stench is terrible!"
Still, Meredith is able to guess where the stench is strongest. She draws her Scimitar, walks right up to the threat and...
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Meredith takes a look at the young paladin as she draws her sword.
"Well, of course we were going to fight something, Apollyanna. I'd rather kill it now than risk someone else getting hurt, though. Even if it is a greedy Venture-Captain."
Really, Meredith simply enjoys hacking away at monsters as stress relief.
Apollyanna begins to detect evil, and is able to tell there is evil in the room. But the feedback from the spell is ... weird.
Lannior's attack strikes home, and the hag falls to the carpet, bleeding. The had was vicious, but you sense the battle was somehow easier that you expected.
Prisim and Meredith move to the windows (as they intended before the brief combat), and look out to find only featureless ambient light. There is nothing discernable beyond the windows, as if a cloud had surrounded the exterior.
Meredith closes here eyes ... This isn't real. None of this is real.
Anyone examining the scroll on the floor discovers it is devoid of the writing that once covered its surface. Should you detect magic you would discover it has a strong transmutation aura.
This is a magic item created by your subconscious manipulation of the flexible possibilities of the wherever-the-hell you are.
A spellcaster can use it as a boro bead , a page of spell knowledge , or pearl of power, whichever function is best for that individual.
Meredith opens her eyes, and the party is in a different place.
The stone walls of Farseer Tower melt away, replaced by warm blonde wooden wall paneling and a plush, lemon yellow carpet. A canopied bed of a child's room sits between two windows, through which the spires of an grand city are visible. A small army of dolls is pushed over to a corner, its slumping forms indicating some level of neglect. Instead, the preferred playthings in this child’s room seem to be books. A row of titles line a shelf on one wall, and several opened ones lie on the bed. Opposite the bed are a closed door and an elaborate vanity table. A mirror on the vanity reflects some motion not apparent in the room itself.
A brief examination shows all of the books are styled as child’s picture books, with bright pictures and big lettering, but inspection shows that the texts are far more advanced than a child could read—each is an issue of the Pathfinder Chronicles or a well-known arcane text.
Those looking into the mirror find the adult image of Wulessa inside the glass. She gives a start upon seeing you, then speaks. “You’re here! I thought, with how things had gone wrong, that perhaps you weren’t trapped in here as well. I... am sorry. I think I erred in my assumptions.”
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"Hmpf. Good riddance." Meredith sheathes her scimitar away and walks over to the window. "Oh, okay. Anyone wants to check on the scroll?"
Meredith closes her eyes. Well, this place isn't real. Where the heck are we? She takes one deep breath to meditate. When she opens her eyes, she seems to be in a children's room.
"What now?" She sighs. She looks around the room and smiles. "I know it's an illusion and all, but... it does remind me of home. Too many dolls, though. I was always helping the adults on the farm..."
Meredith trails off about her life before hearing Wulessa. "D-don't scare me like that. I was certain you turned into that Hag we dealt with. Is this your room? No, that's the wrong question- is this a mental representation of your room? Any idea how to get out of here?"
The image of Venture Captain Wulessa speaks from the mirror. “This place is a mental landscape, as I had thought, yet it seems to be patterned out of my mind.”
“I can feel the days of my life being transcribed. Pulled from my body and stored here. I don’t know if there will be anything left of me when it is done. I can’t even move around. I’m simply trapped inside my own memories."
She answers Pau: "This is my childhood bedroom in Quantium. I would lie in bed, reading adventure stories of brave explorers and warriors. Childish treacle, but still... I think that was what sparked my ambitions to be a Pathfinder. As for the contents of the books ... what you describe is not what I remember.”
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"So " concludes Prisim.
"The physical setting is of your childhood, but the memories maybe altered by your later life?"
She goes over to pick up one of the chronicles and reads it aloud to see if it is one that does indeed feature Wulessa, or if the captain can put context to it.
"I wonder if they give a clue to how we get out of here. What is your actually surrounding captain?"
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Suddenly getting serious about there surroundings.
A mental landscape of your mind? If this is your childhood, then perhaps we can explore the rest of your life as well. Maybe if we progress toward the present an opportunity to escape will present itself.
Impressed by his own ideas of the place, Lannior moves to the door and attempts to open it and perhaps see some more of the Venture Captain's memories.
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"You mean we're stuck with her?"
Suddenly getting serious about there surroundings.
A mental landscape of your mind? If this is your childhood, then perhaps we can explore the rest of your life as well. Maybe if we progress toward the present an opportunity to escape will present itself.
Maybe we can fix whatever made her such a damn fool as well. Hmmm.
"So, what was your childhood like?" Apollyanna asks the room noting all the books and the lack of My Little Pegasus figurines, Barabrella doors, boy bard troupe murals, etc.... "Did your father yell 'What you gonna do with your life?' and did you say something like: 'Oh daddy dear you know you're still number one, but girls they want to have fun!' Some parents-" She continues. "-Take a beautiful girl and hide her away from the rest of the world, I wanted to be the one to walk in the sun because I wanted to have fun!"
Maybe she had a diary.... "Did you have a diary?"
The door does not open under Lannior's hand. Indeed, as he approaches it he realizes that it's simply painted on the wall in the appearance of a door. There is in fact no door at all.
The image of Wulessa in the mirror sighs. “I can feel some entity controlling the archive—I was correct in that much. But invoking the scroll seems to have caused it to add me to the archive rather than granting me access.”
“I can feel the days of my life being transcribed. Pulled from my body and stored here. I don’t know if there will be anything left of me when it is done. I can’t even move around. You might be safe. You were only riding along on my invocation. I think you are only here as a side effect. When the archive is finished ... emptying me, you might be released into your bodies. Or you might be trapped in here. I’m not certain."
"The books were not then as you describe them now. Something is wrong."
"I wish I could help you. If only my spells were of any use to you—"
No sooner are those words out of her mouth than there is a loud popping noise from the drawer in the vanity.
A potion has appeared. Wulessa identifies it as a potion of enlarge person, one of the spells she was thinking of when you heard the popping noise.
As the conversation continues, Prisim and Meredith examine the books. Clearly something is odd about them; the insides don't match the covers.
Both of them realize that the books represent a flaw in the mindscape that has trapped you. Focusing on these flaws and attempting to disbelieve the dream may allow you to travel from place to place.
Indeed, as they realize this, the room fades from view into a white nothing.
The room shimmers and changes again. The shape remains the same, but the walls and floor resolve into a series of glass tiles that creates a checkerboard of luminescent blue and light-swallowing black.
The door vanishes, revealing a passageway on the left filled with the same half-light. Opposite this, the room breaks away entirely. An entire wall is missing to the right, leaving a jagged hole overlooking a void occupied by nothing more than deep purple mist, seemingly born out of and reabsorbed by the darkness. Somewhere in the depths, a tremendous crystalline shape flashes through the mist. The room is otherwise featureless, devoid of all angles. Even the floor has a slight curvature, melding smoothly into the walls.
Out in the void, tiles flash with different images, some of which appear to be your thoughts. You see it freeze briefly and take the image of a large eye, then a large question mark.
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"I wish I could help you. If only my spells were of any use to you—"
No sooner are those words out of her mouth than there is a loud popping noise from the drawer in the vanity.
"The diary!" Apollyanna opens the drawer. Wow, you didn't even have any cute t-shirts or underwear.... "Huh, what's this?" She pulls a small potion vial from the drawer. "Perfume? Bubble bath? Something naughty you were hiding from your parents? It's not drugs is it?"
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The room shimmers and changes again. The shape remains the same, but the walls and floor resolve into a series of glass tiles that creates a checkerboard of luminescent blue and light-swallowing black.
The door vanishes, revealing a passageway on the left filled with the same half-light. Opposite this, the room breaks away entirely. An entire wall is missing to the right, leaving a jagged hole overlooking a void occupied by nothing more than deep purple mist, seemingly born out of and reabsorbed by the darkness. Somewhere in the depths, a tremendous crystalline shape flashes through the mist. The room is otherwise featureless, devoid of all angles. Even the floor has a slight curvature, melding smoothly into the walls.
Out in the void, tiles flash with different images, some of which appear to be your thoughts. You see it freeze briefly and take the image of a large eye, then a large question mark.
"Great, we're in creepy, old Wulessa's haunted head." Was this her childhood family room?
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"I can't say it's all been bad..." Meredith concentrates deeply. One of the panels changes to a younger, dirtier, bloodier Meredith laughing triumphantly. Her allies all cheer as a band of mercenaries flee the farm. One well-dressed nobleman seems to curse them as he runs away.
"This isn't what I thought would be in here. What's up with that crystal?"
As Lannior vocalizes his thoughts ("It's asking us a question"), the crystal panels flash once, as if in confirmation.
They dull and pause again, after Lannio asks "Who are you?". In a rush you see all of the panels change rapidly, mostly faces of powerful looking people, interspersed with a recurring theme of scales, and of chains breaking and being reforged. After an extended sequence of rapid-fire changes, again the panels converge to show a single eye and then, again, a question mark.
Meredith concentrates hard on her past. Getting even a single panel to change is more difficult than she thought it might be, as if you are not as connected to the archive as those that have gone before. As she tries to share her memories through thought, every time she focuses on a single panel, it fades from a fuzzy approximation of her memory to a blank question mark.
Prisim concentrates hard, trying to discover the flaw in this room. She finds none, but her eyes do keep going back to the passageway leading around the corner to the left.
Prisim calls out, meaning Wulessa. ("Can you hear us here?") There is no audible response from the Venture Captain, but the crystals shrouded in mist pulse once briefly.
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"Huh. This is harder than I thought." Meredith puts a hand to her chin. "Unlike the last room, this isn't Wulessa's. I think we're near the core of the archive."
When Lannior asks it a question, it overrides her image and disrupts her thoughts. "How do we free all of you?" She asks the question mark.
The archive responds with a set of blank crystals, as if it doesn't understand the question. Slowly at first, and then in a rush, you see different figures each nodding their head or signing a contract, and then willingly participate in a brief ritual. You get the sense that these images are not coming from different voices, but from a single voice explaining the actions of others.
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They dull and pause again, after Lannio asks "Who are you?". In a rush you see all of the panels change rapidly, mostly faces of powerful looking people, interspersed with a recurring theme of scales, and of chains breaking and being reforged. After an extended sequence of rapid-fire changes, again the panels converge to show a single eye and then, again, a question mark.
The archive responds with a set of blank crystals, as if it doesn't understand the question. Slowly at first, and then in a rush, you see different figures each nodding their head or signing a contract, and then willingly participate in a brief ritual. You get the sense that these images are not coming from different voices, but from a single voice explaining the actions of others.
"I see..." Meredith crosses her arms. "I guess the people here willingly joined the archive. But Captain Wulessa didn't. How do we free her?"
Once Meredith gets a response, she turns towards the lit hallway. "If we don't figure things out here, maybe we should move on to the next room and get a clue there."
There is no discernable answer to Meredith's second question ("How do we free her?"), as if the archive had not considered the possibility.
Prisim sees nothing that could be interpreted as a response to her question to the VC.
The party exits down the side passage. As the passage curves toward a set of doors, the glass tiles suddenly give way to worked stone. As you look behind you, the structure remains uniform, as though the glowing glass hallway—and the path you came from—were never there.
The doors open onto a balcony overlooking a wide chamber. A winged statue formed out of the stone wall looms ominously from across the room. Catwalks wind around the edges and across the room, leading to a primitive altar in front of the statue. Above and below the suspended middle level of the room, gratings in the floor and ceiling produce a constant upward-moving breeze. While the statue seems crafted to represent a male human-avian hybrid, its face is unmistakably that of Wulessa Yuul.
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Prisim looks closely at the doors with a degree of suspicion.
Then opens them anyway.
"Wow.. What does this room represent?"
She looks closely around the room paying particular attention to the statue.
"First she turns into a hag, then we have a weird version of her childhood bedroom, then a crystalish version, and now as a statue or a goddess of some kind."
She looks to the others. "This feels a bit like a temple. I wonder where the wind comes from."
Cautiously she looks down at one of the grills, and then wiggles her fingers to try and make it come off.
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"It feels like we're looking into various parts of her mind, her psyche." Meredith glances around the hallway. "Or maybe this is someone else's mind, getting mixed into the archive's collective." Meredith peers at the statue. "This isn't the kind of cooperation I would want out of people. They willingly gave themselves to this...thing."
"I'll check the altar."
Apollyanna studies the statue. It reminds her of some elemental demon, except with Wulessa's face. She thinks it might have been Pazuzu, but she can't be sure. She remembers the name because it sounds funny, like 'kazoo', but she remembers nothing else from that class. Except that there was a cute squire sitting in front of her.
The statue remains motionless until Meredith approaches. As she does so, the face of Wulessa animates and speaks.
“I remember this. It was my first expedition after joining the Pathfinder Society. We discovered a lost shrine to—I will not speak his name—The King of Wind Demons. We sought a golden icon hidden in the altar. The way down was easier than expected. There were traps, but we bypassed them. The way to the shrine was hidden, but we found the trigger to open it. And then... there were guardians. Here. Two of us died. They came from the air itself. I think you are in danger! Here, take this; it may aid you against the dangers here.”
As Wulessa speaks, a rope falls from the ceiling and lands at wholly at Meredith's feet.
Prisim prepares to cast mage hand, but before she can get the spell off, there is an increased sound of wind pouring from the vents below.
A potion coalesces on the altar. "An oil of magic weapon, Wulessa says. "Use it wisely."
The mist pours through the gratings, beginning to gather into unknown shapes.