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Doubtful frowns at Amiri's insistance.
"How should I know?" He complains. "Can't you see it?"
"Its just off. Like she didn't fully manifest during the ceremony maybe?"
He dodges to his left a bit, before adding, his voice changing as if suddenly coming to an uncomfortable realization. "Or maybe we didn't?!"
"I knew jumping into dead peoples' brains was a bad idea!" He yells morosely.
"What, apart from the fact that the VC appears to have been replaced by a horrible hag?"
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Imrana nods excitedly at Doubtful's conjectures.
"Ah, good theories! I would like to brainstorm as well, if I may."
She mimes a flat plane and then draws a small circle on it.
"Perhaps we have gone straight through the Astral Plane and connected directly to the Akashic Record? The Venture-Captain could be stuck on the Astral Plane."
She gives measured pokes to the nearby wall and floor.
"Alternatively, our current setting may be an elaborate hoax of illusion magic. We shall have to make a more concerted effort to interact with it."
She pats herself all over, then breathes into her hand, then pinches herself, then feels her forehead.
"I do not think we are dead. I have not read any accounts that describe any phenomena like the ones we are experiencing right now."
She continues, her tone as cheerful as ever.
"I suppose it could be an as-of-yet undiscovered way of expiring, though."
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Jaïr was hit by one of the claw of the creature, but as she thought that she will be badly hurt, she had only a light injury.
She took a 5ft. step back, call for he god to protect her and a second her appeared. Then she draw her wand of bless, ready to use it to help her comrades.
I have no idea of what's going on ! But something clearing wrong here.
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Dunkel's axe digs deep into the creature, causing it dissolve into a pile of shadowy tendrils, and rapidly dissipate.
As Doubtful frets about where they may or may not be, the walls and furnishings likewise begin to become shadowy and insubstantial, while new shapes begin to solidify and brighten with color. Amiri rises a few feet off the ground as a new, soft surface forms beneath her feet.
As the stone walls of Farseer Tower melt away, they are replaced by warm blonde wooden wall paneling and a plush, lemon yellow carpet. A canopied bed sits between two windows, through which the spires of an grand city, strikingly different from what you've seen of Katapesh, 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, at Amiri's feet.
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.
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As the entire world around them seems to shift and change, Doubtful looks around with a sense of impending doom.
"So much for the frying pan." He mutters.
"What happened to the Venture-Captain." He adds gloomily, after a moment, realizing neither Wulessa nor the hag version of her, are present anymore.
"Maybe we should have asked how to get out." He adds, eyeing the pile of dolls, and everything else, suspiciously.
Amiri frowns.
"This is definitely not normal!"
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Doubtful recognizes the city out the window as Quantium, the capital of Nex. However, it doesn't quite look correct. You can clearly see Scrivenborough, the city's temple to Abraxas, and its six fluted towers. However, you know that twenty years ago, the sixth tower disappeared during a magical experiment, and was never rebuilt.
Judging the books by their covers, they seem to be children's books, with bright colors and large, easy to read letters. As Jair looks closer, though, the titles seem too serious for their spines. The History of Ulduvai, A Most Accurate History of the Shoanti Displacements, and Beyond Steel: The Mysteries of Numerian Science are among the titles. None seem targeted at young children.
Doubtful also catches a glimpse of the mirror, and sees the Venture-Captain's face inside the glass. She gives a start upon seeing you, then speaks nervously,
"“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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Jair tried to determine what the pearl do but was unable. She turned to Imrana and ask her to try it.
I'm unable to know what this thing do, can you ?
but as she looked at the books while the wizard examined the pearl she was interrupted by the Captain's voice... coming from the mirror !
Captain ?! What did you do in here ? Are we in your mind ? or in the mind of an ancient Jiska ?
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Doubtful stares out the window for a moment with a distressed look.
"That looks a lot like the capital of Nex." He says, pointing to the spires visible through the window. "But not the now Nex, more like a picture I saw once from over a century ago."
He backs away from the window, bumping into the vanity. He turns and is surprised to see the image of Wulessa in the mirror.
"And now she's in the mirror." He moans unhappily, pointing it out to the others.
"Trapped?" He echoes, at the venture-captains words, his tone clearly expecting nothing less.
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"It is a mental landscape, as I had thought, yet it seems to be patterned off of my mind. 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.
And yes,” she continues wistfully, "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.
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Doubtful stays away from the mirror, just in case she grows fangs again, though watches the image of the Venture-Captain with a frown.
"If it uh... archived you..." He says finally, "How do we get out?" It is clear he's not too happy about this latest development at all.
"And how do we get you out?" He adds after a moment.
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Jaïr look at the mirror and says as she shows the books, History of Ulduvai, A Most Accurate History of the Shoanti Displacements, and Beyond Steel: The Mysteries of Numerian Science to the Captain.
Captain Wulessa, I don't think these lectures were yours at the age this mental manifestation seems to get us back, isn't it.
Amiri ponders for a moment, before suggesting:
"If this is the archive, maybe these books represent the Venture Captain's accumulated memories?"
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Imrana nods, her excitement swiftly draining.
"Ah, yes. I recognize the palaces of the Arclords. The Great Nex would not be happy to know that they have made peace with his enemy." Her tone is at once admonishing, worried, and wistful.
Imrana turns back to the Venture-Captain, the young (in relative time) girl suddenly smiling again.
"I did not know you were from Quantium, too! I am very much out-of-sorts when it comes to recent history."
Imrana approaches the books, laying a hand across each of them, as though she could divine their contents from the leather.
"Hmm...memories and experiences in the form of books. This phenomenon might reveal new methods of inquiry into my task for the Great Nex."
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Dunkel paces a bit as the group comes to realize they are in a mindscape formed from the mind of the venture-captain.
Almost absent-mindedly, he reaches out to touch the walls to ensure they feel firm to his touch and quickly he pulls hia hand away when it appears solid.
He looks over his shoulder at the mirror.
"So, ahh, Miss Wulessa.. what should we exactly be doin' here in ye mind?"
Dunkel touches the "wall" again.
"Ah' can try diggin' us out? Perhaps what this mindscape needs is some access tunnels?"
Cracking his knuckles he flexes some.
"This'd be new ground fer even a Diggerson, ah could be th' first to be tunnelin' in ah' mindscape!"
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Doubtful sits down on one corner of the bed, looking miserable.
Suddenly he realizes that its not really a bed, but part of the Venture-Captain's brain, and leaps up again, attempting to straighten the covers back to where they were.
He decides to just remain standing from that point on.
"And how come you were trying to eat us, a moment ago?" He adds, reminding everyone of the shadowy-hag-Wullesa they just left behind in the previous scene.
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Wulessa addresses Doubtful, " 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. The days of my life being transcribed. Pulled from my body and stored here.
There is an entity overseeing the transcription. This... archivist, for lack of a proper name, should logically have a presence inside this mindscape, at least during this process. You may be able to find the archivist and challenge or persuade it to stop. Hopefully that would release us all.
I'm not sure what you mean by eating you. I have been alone here until you arrived."
As Imrana touches the books, they become less and less substantial. Everything else begins to follow suit.
"Wait!" the Venture-Captain calls out, an intense look of concentration on her face, "Take this!"
A potion bottle manifests on the vanity, though both vial and table seem to be fading out of reality.
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The room shimmers and changes again. The shape remains roughly 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 passage filled with the same half-light. Opposite this, the room breaks away entirely. An entire wall is missing, 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.
The tiles begin to arrange themselves into patterns.
Amiri remains blissfully ignorant as to what is going on...
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"Eye...question...."
She draws an eye and a question mark in the air.
"I question...something?"
She repeats the motions several times, pausing at the end, waiting to hear something else. She finally rapidly waves her hands, as if wiping doen a chalkboard.
"Question...want to know...."
She points at herself, her mouth widening in a voiceless "Ah!"
"I want to know?"
She waits, then shakes her head, shrugging her mouth to one side in displeasure.
"Or maybe 'see...' What see? Who see? What do I see? Who do I see?"
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Feighllaro nods along with Imrana's first suggestion and then again with the second.
Feighllaro looks to her companions "How to we communicate back? Can it hear us?"
Feighllaro turns to the symbols "Hi there, we're Pathfinders, we work for Wulessa..."
Feighllaro will put away her bow and speak with open hands of friendship.
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Doubtful stumbles slightly, as the potion bottle he was reaching for fades out of existence as he was trying to grab it, and the scene around them shifts once again.
He looks around unhappily, frowning. "Now what?" he mutters.
He stands there, staring at the strange room, and the tiles and the mist-filled void behind them, muttering to himself as Imrana and Feighllaro puzzle over the images on the tiles.
"Maybe we're inside the potion." He says, after a while. "I bet that's it.".
He points at the tile images. "And now someone's looking in wondering what they've caught. Like bugs in a cage!"
"I'd panic... but I don't think it'd do any good." He sighs slightly, and shrugs.
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Dunkel pats Doubtful on the back.
"There, there 'coz. Ain't no reason t' panic, jess yet. We've been movin' from room ta' room faster than we can dig a 6x10 through 4 feet of limestome, so need t' panic, unless..."
Dunkel eyes the tiles, the crystalline shape and looks upward.
"... unless somethin' plans t' be drinkin' this potion bottle with us inside!!"
Dunkel appear slightly anxious, all caused by his own speculations fed from Doubtful's.
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Jair recognizes this as a form of envisaging, communication used by Aeons. Aeons are neutral outsiders. They are to far removed form mortal perspectives to use traditional language, but communicate by reading thoughts and projecting visual, aural, or other sensual stimuli.
The eye pivots towards Jair, blinks, and a quizzical eyebrow manifests above it.
As Doubtful speaks, a new image forms, showing you all standing on a vast scroll. The scroll rolls up, and a bottle manifests around it. The bottle is then surrounded by a stormy sea, bobbing on the surface.
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The images fade away, returning to an irregular, shifting pattern of black and blue tiles. There appears to be a hallway of the glowing glass tiles in front of you.
After several hundred feet of walking, the hallway makes a gradual turn. As the passage curves toward a set of doors, the glass tiles suddenly give way to worked stone. Behind, the structure remains uniform stonework, as though the glowing glass hallway were never there.
When you open the doors, 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.
Amiri glances around the room cautiously.
"Looks like something the Venture Captain might have encountered on a mission... well, apart from the fact that that statue carries her likeness..."
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Doubtful stops to examine the stone for a moment, with a dwarven eye for such things, not believing it to be as real as it looks.
"We still in her brain?" Doubtful asks, unsure... "Could be anyone's at this point."
He looks around, frowning for a moment, before adding, "Though don't think its mine."
He holds out one hand tentatively, to test the breeze coming up from below, before stepping out onto the catwalk and working his way along it, towards the statue on the left side.
"Don't eat us this time." He mutters, though does not appear to be addressing anyone directly.
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Imrana scans the room, focusing on a visual for a moment before moving on, assembling a panorama in her head. She hums to herself the entire time, much as a child might when assembling blocks.
She finally stops and nods to Doubtful.
"If we were in your brain, I think we would already have died to something terrible. You spend much time thinking about bad things that could happen, no?"
Imrana stops to consider each of her companions in-turn.
"I am not so sure about the others. We are not in pit or a tunnel, so we probably are not in Dunkel's. The others are enigmatic enough that I cannot say for certain."
She mentally refers back to the image of the room she had constructed in her head, no longer bother to search.
"There are no sweetwine and rolls or music here, so we are definitely not in mine. Unless I am tricking myself without knowing. Though 'tricking' implies awareness of falsity on the part of the 'tricker,' though that implication may be attributed to language rather than thought, the signifier instead of the signified, as it were."
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As Doubtful enters the room, Wulessa face on the statue 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.” A rope falls from the ceiling, landing on the altar.
The mist on the lower level, twenty feet down, rapidly coalesces into a pair of wispy figures. One flies up, level with the rest of you. Dull, red eyes, grasping claws, and leathery wings give a demonic aspect to this creature’s smoky form.
Initiative
- M2 (level with party)
- Doubtful We are here
- Dunkel
- Jair
- M1 (20 ft down)
- Imrana
- Amiri
- Feighllaro
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Doubtful gives Imrana meaningful look, as the misty creatures show up.
"Something terribe always happens." He mutters, reacting quickly to the new threat. He moves up behind the faster creature, and aims a blow at it with one fist.
, for damage.
He hopes this is yet another shadowy version of a creature... but doubts he's that fortunate.
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Imrana smiles, not returning Doubtful's gaze.
"Manageable terrible things provide knowledge, and knowledge never manages to be terrible." Her tone of voice deepens slightly, as though mimicking the person who first said those words.
Imrana draws her Magic Missile wand and fires a bolt at the creature being double-teamed by the dwarves.
Amiri hefts her sword, whilst regarding the wispy creatures warily.
"So? Does anyone recognise what these things are?"