Tam Rivers's page

A few thoughts from the player perspective.

I hate the horror genre in general, and even though I loathe Lovecraftian cosmic horror less than, say, slasher horror, it's still not my cup of tea by a long shot. As such, I had vetoed Strange Æons as a possible campaign for our table for years. I had a change of mind when I realized it was going to be a campaign about a much more personal struggle than is usual for Pathfinder, with personal rather than global stakes, and with deeply troubled and flawed main characters. That paid off very nicely, and I greatly enjoyed how it turned out, especially in the first three books, which are just brilliant. In the later books, the scope turns from personal back to global, and the Lovecraftian themes push through harder than before, which was apparently great for the players familiar with the Cthulhu epos but completely lost on me. Still, by then I'd come to enjoy the characters and their story enough to tide me through to the satisfying ending.

It’s not my favorite AP of those I GM’d (that would probably be Kingmaker and Return of the Runelords) but it’s still an excellent AP and of the very high Paizo standard.

Agreed on both accounts. It was a very intense and memorable game.

Overall, here’s what I really enjoyed in the AP:

- The cosmic horror. When it worked (most of the time), it worked really well.
- As usual with Paizo APs, the encounters and role-play with interesting, lively, and lovely NPCs: Winter, Skywin Freeling, Upianshe, Queen Cassilda. There are fewer than in most APs but at least these four are very memorable.
- The start, in the asylum, without memories, surrounded by doppelgangers and ghouls. Wow, talk about unsettling!
- The fact that Lowls is present more or less from the start, grows into the villain quickly and gets stopped at the end, even if it’s not really him anymore.
- The exploration of the Dreamlands; the trip to the moon in the Dreamlands.
- The fight against the PCs own selves!
- The alien decor and locations towards the end (Nerazuvin and Carcosa).

All of these were awesome aspects of the campaign. Looking back, I'm amazed we survived the first book with our minds and bodies even halfways intact — it was a tour de force in every way. I also have the third book in vivid memory, with all those great set pieces in the Dreamworld, feeling your character's mind deteriorate more and more and wondering how it could all possibly end well. It was no doubt the best first book of the Paizo adventures I've played so far. The second book wasn't bad either, with the PCs being faced with hatred at every turn by the town folk and dreading each new revelation on the PCs' forgotten misdeeds, but its challenges were overall much more mundane compared to the mind-bending weirdness of the other two.

Reclaiming our memories and souls at the middle of the campaign was a very rewarding closure — perhaps too much so, since the game's focus reverted from the unique and riveting «save your soul before it comes undone at the seams» driver to the much more conventional «save the world». Even though the stakes are objectively speaking infinitely higher in the second case, my sense of urgency relaxed once the ticking time-bomb in my head was defused, and it never got back to the same level of existential dread that dominated the first three books.

In the fourth book, I didn't understand why we had to follow in Lowls' footsteps and clean up his messes when we knew exactly what his itinerary was, and could have traveled ahead and intercepted him. The book clearly wanted to railroad us through these encounters and always stay one step behind Lowls, but there was no in-game rationale to do so. It could easily have been fixed if the itinerary we found in the manor was incomplete and we had to piece together Lowls' next step from clues we found along the way. I did rather enjoy the three set pieces (more than Olwen and Mrriaál did at any rate), but no doubt Olwen's editing did a lot of good there. Pity the archon couldn't be swayed or saved. Killing Biting Lash, Mrriaál's former owner, was a very rewarding plot point.

Neruzavin was appropriately weird, and very deadly indeed, if at times a bit desolate and thus contributing to a certain sense of detachment (Why do we have to go down that shaft where the millions of deadly polyps live again? Why do we have to attune these stelae to bring Carcosa and Golarion together; isn't that exactly what we're trying to avoid? Why is this our job, of all people?). At this point, I also started to get tired of NPCs spouting relentless propaganda of hopelessness and doom. I personally found this book the weakest link in the campaign, even if Olwen did an admirable job at fleshing out the empty canvas of the city with colorful details. The fight with the husk of Xhamen-Dor in the end was appropriately terrifying.

Carcosa was a mixed bag. I found the arrival jarring: After so much foreshadowing and nightmarish visions of that supposedly madness-inducing world, we finally arrived there and... it was a giant suburb? With depressed and gloomy people just... living there in resignation? And we're supposed to attend the third ball in this campaign? Very anticlimactic after the utter weirdness of Neruzavin. It got better, though. The chapter in the city of the Elder things was appropriately alien, terrifying and atmospheric, and delivered in spades what I had expected of Carcosa. I found it rather annoying that the third chapter played in a ruined version of real-world Paris (nothing breaks immersion for me like mixing the real world into a fantasy world), and the whole Lovecraft references (it sounds more like wholesale copying) were lost on me. The three chapters felt accordingly disjointed from each other. The third chapter was mercifully short, though, and the encounter with the tower-sized worm was appropriately terrifying and Cthulhuesque when it swallowed one of our PCs and instantly digested it into slime. Overall, I greatly appreciated Olwen's philosophy of reducing unnecessary encounters in the final chapter and replacing them with more atmospheric exploration and roleplaying. Combat is tedious, unpredictable, and deadly at these high levels, and that doesn't lend itself to grinding through dungeons. As it was, we often only had a single fight in a session, but that one felt monumentous, thrilling and crucial to the story. A very fitting way of resolving the end-game for such a campaign in my opinion.

I appreciated that the heroes were shunted back into Golarion after they killed Xhamen-Lowls. It would have been in tune with Lovecraftian horror to leave them to die in Carcosa for their trouble, but I for one appreciated a happy ending after all we'd been through. It made sense for Lowls to be kept for the final encounter (well, second-to-last, since we had a run-in with the betrayed archons after that...), but given his transformed state, we never got to face him as a person and talk to him. I'm surprised to read that the Briarstone Witch was going to show up in the final encounter — I think she makes more sense as the boogieman of the superstitious town folk than as a real player in this game. It was a brilliant choice by Olwen to replace her by the Pallid Mask, whom we'd already learned to hate and fear!

- As usual with Paizo APs, the encounters and role-play with interesting, lively, and lovely NPCs: Winter, Skywin Freeling, Upianshe, Queen Cassilda. There are fewer than in most APs but at least these four are very memorable.

One more thing on that note: I did notice how most of the NPCs in responsible leadership roles were women (Lowls obviously not counting as responsible), in particular in the early half of the game. I thought that was a nice statement about Golarion's take on gender roles as opposed to our contemporary literature and movie world's fixation on male characters...

Olwen did Hell's Rebels with some of us already.

We're planning on starting a non-Mythic Wrath of the Righteous in a couple of weeks, though!

Well, what do you know, she did turn out to be a flesh-eating monstrosity. At least we got to spend a decent amount of private quality time in the baths before she started hurting me. That means she, too, must have enjoyed it. That still counts, right?

Good thing I keep Freedom of Movement on myself these days, or she would most certainly have paralyzed and drained me there. When I tried to flee the baths, her brother (?) blocked my path and attempted to force me back inside. I was already half-dead from her bout of biting and claw-stabbing, so my only chance was to reach polite company before they got another chance. Good thing I had included myself in my Mass Fly spell back when I cast it on Mrriaál, and could invoke Grace to escape from the predators' reach unscathed. That allowed me to fling myself across the hall and straight through a window, stark naked as I was. I must have scandalized more than a few guests with that, but clearly I had less face to lose than my pursuers, who didn't care to be seen chasing a bleeding naked lad through their own party.

We later found the coffins of those two in the mansion's basement, right next to Lord Avarik's own. I suppose they were the Lord's offspring. I feel a bit bad about leaving them behind to continue their predations on other guests, but we have a world to save, and there's only so much we can do.

another woman took Tam off for sexytimes

I found the daughter for us and tried convincing her, presumably while everyone else was chilling and/or doing drugs. I DESERVE THIS.

But do come save me if she turns out to be a flesh-eating monstrosity, I guess. I didn‘t sense any duplicity from her, but don‘t trust my judgment just now.

Also call me if you need help with a fight I guess, but STRICTLY ONLY IN DIRE EMERGENCIES.

so if you meet someone you like a lot and then that person becomes a sword and you use that sword does that count as cheating

I'd say that depends on how you use it...

we were attacked by a ghost named Upianshe and she nearly killed Tam

Yeah, whose brilliant idea was it to give a 70 dmg touch-attack sword to a Magus? >.<

I'm not sure which adventure I'd love to see you all go on next more, Hell's Rebels or Reign of Winter. Both would be truly amusing, I'm sure! ^^;; Thank you for sharing your journals!

Olwen already played Hell's Rebels with some of us (Bit, Dr. Variel and me). It was good fun, but we didn't keep a campaign journal, alas! Here's Olwen's review, though:

Link

I expect our next campaign will be either Curse of the Crimson Throne (since Dr. Variel's player is on paternity leave from our table, and he knows CotCT inside out, so it might be a rare chance for us to play it) or War for the Crown (since we all seem excited to play that one). There's a bunch of other candidates still around, though, and we've been known to change our minds only weeks before the new campaign's start, so...

In a way, it's good to have closure on the Winter story. I barely know her, after all, and she just proved I knew her even less than I thought. I suppose I was in a vulnerable place when I woke up in Briarstone and desperately clung to the rock that Winter's cool-headed competence offered. It's time to admit that my crush was for the idealized mental image I had been cultivating of her, rather than for the real Winter.

Mrriaál had been right all along — what I had been interpreting as no-nonsense pragmatism is probably just rudeness. After all, when we parted ways in Thrushmoor, she explicitly encouraged me to contact her, be it in writing or by magic. I don't blame her for changing her mind — I might have overdone the contacting a tad there — but she could have let me down gently. Giving me the cold shoulder for a week and then suddenly snapping at me is just mean.

Mrriaál also says I deserve better. She likes to call herself a monster, but she's clearly the party's kindest soul.

I'm certainly glad this happened after we reclaimed our memories. I suppose I would have taken it harder before that. Knowing that I once won Nekepti's heart certainly helps me keep up the hope, although I probably got inordinately lucky there (would she ever have noticed me if we hadn't been stuck in an expedition of two dozen people for weeks?) and did end up ruining it for us.

Huh, I guess I'm back at ending my notes on a downer.

+++SENDING IN PROGRESS+++
From: tamuil.rivers@horus.org
To: ash-sharratum@arch.sothis-uni.edu
Subject: hey
Body: Dear Nekepti: Finally recovered from trauma; returning to Horus and not being total jerk. Sorry for running off like that. How are you? Best, Tam

From: ash-sharratum@arch.sothis-uni.edu
To: tamuil.rivers@horus.org
Subject: Re: hey
Body: Tam! Wow, so glad you're better. Let's catch up someday! Happy but hands full atm. Hugs, Niki, Akhton, Ayat (2 years), Qasim (3 weeks!)
+++SENDING COMPLETE+++

By the way, Nekepti Balaat aš-Šarratum was my main PC in Olwen's Mummy's Mask a few years back. :)

(Most of our standard group was inconvenienced at the time, so it was just Bit's player and I, and we each played two PCs. Worked out well!)

Since Tam now remembers everything, here's the rest of his backstory.

A boy is sixteen years old. The desert breeze is surprisingly chilly this early in the morning, but it already carries a myriad of exotic smells and the sounds of the awakening city from the walls behind him. The Sun has just risen above the horizon and is basking the dunes in red brilliance. The boy has never seen anything so beautiful. His previous life in Ustalav seems pale in comparison, like a palimpsest on cheap paper.

«Heartening, isn't it?» The expedition's priest, Akhton, is expertly guiding his camel past, while the boy's own beast appears to care little for his intentions. «At night, we mourn the Sun's absence, and at noon, we cower from its terrible might. But in the morning it grants us vigor, and in the evening it soothes us. Horus is both of these things, the rising Sun and the setting Sun, the horizon behind us and the one before us.»

The boy reaches for the clasp on his cloak. It feels warm, as if it were drinking more than its fair share of the sunrise's light. «It's going to be a long ride. Would you mind telling me about Him along the way?»

—

A boy is seventeen years old. The mewling is not very loud, but it strikes a chord in the boy's heart. «We have to help him.»

The expedition lead tracker, Yepsut, shakes her head while nocking an arrow. «Vicious beasts they are, second only to dragons. They know no masters. More trouble than they're worth. Best to get it over with.»

«No.» The boy steps forth. «He's just a baby. Let me try something.»

Yepsut fumes at the boy, but he is oblivious to her. He raises his hands, palms out, and approaches the trapped tyrant lizard, half speaking and half whispering the ancient words, like Akhton had taught him. The mewling stops abruptly. The creature's amber eyes fix him as he steps closer, slowly reaching for its bulky snout until he can feel its hot breath on the back of his hand. It flinches only a little as he rests his palm on its scaly skin. Then a tentative purr rises from its throat.

Yepsut lowers the bow and says, «It's a mistake.»

Akhton says, «One does not refuse a divine gift.»

Professor Gorolyushina says to the boy, «Either way, it's your responsibility now, Tamuil.»

The boy says, «I'm going to call him Mister Fluffy.»

Yepsut growls. «You will not. First of all, it's a female. And second, it's bad luck to mock a proud beast like that. You will give her a proper name, or by the gods, she will have your head.»

«Abkhadnezar», says Professor Gorolyushina. «It was the name of Epshet-Hasuf's cat.»

«Abkhadnezar it is, then», says the boy.

—

A boy is eighteen years old. After two years of gathering clues and following leads in the desert, Professor Gorolyushina is certain to have pinpointed the location of Epshet-Hasuf's final resting place. She has invited a famed local scholar, Dr. Nekepti aš-Šarratum, to join in the discovery.

In the bustle of the two expeditions merging, a girl drops a scroll from a bundle she is carrying. The boy hands it back to her and is rewarded with a radiant smile that puts the desert sun to shame.

«Are you with Dr. aš-Šarratum's group?» He asks her.

«I am», she replies with another smile.

«What's she like?"», the boy asks.

The girl drops into a conspirational whisper. «Oh, she's a dragon, that one. Short temper, long memory. You mustn't offend her, or she won't let you forget it. I addressed her improperly on our first meeting, and she stuck me on latrine duty for a week. Even now—»

Then her eyes grow wide. «There she comes! Don't ruin it!» She ducks away, leaving the boy alone as a tall older woman in well-used riding armor strides straight toward him.

He swallows hard, then bows deeply and addresses the approaching woman in his best Ancient Osirian: «Dr. aš-Šarratum, it is an honor to meet you.»

«What?!», snaps the woman.

The boy freezes and stammers until, finally, he hears the girl erupt in gales of laughter behind the nearest tent. The woman scowls at her and grunts, «You don't pay me nearly enough to take part in your childish games, doctor.»

The boy stares at the girl. She can't be more than a few years older than him. «Doctor?»

She grins. «Call me Nekepti.»

He does.

By the third week, they share a tent.

—

A man is nineteen years old. The glyphs above the stone door are time-worn, yet he can read them effortlessly now. Here lies Epshet-Hasuf, Scribe to the Pharao; he lived in Light; he died in Darkness. The expedition cheers.

The crypt is too ancient to smell of decay. Some walls are covered in writing, others hold a honeycomb of scrolls preserved through the ages by magic. The scholars gape in silent amazement. Then, a strangled scream.

A shape of pure darkness claws its way forth from the sarcophagus, passing right through the solid stone lid. Its face is too terrible to behold, and as the expedition freezes still with terror, it takes hold of Nekepti's arm. In its other hand, an orb of unholy power blossoms, darker than even the creature and shot through with flickering red flame, a mind-rending flaw in reality. As the creature reaches to touch Nekepti's heart with it, Tamuil lifts his own hand and grasps the orb. The world turns dark.

—

A being is ageless. It is blind, deaf, disembodied. The void envelops it completely. It is so empty that its emptiness takes form, vast entities of cold absence that move in the dark without regard or purpose. The being has no agency, no voice, no meaning. It exists only to experience terror.

—

When Tamuil finally wakes, even the light of a candle is too much to bear. It takes hours until he tolerates the presence of others in the tent. They tell him that the curse is broken, the evil spirit exorcized and vanquished, that the light prevailed.

But he knows better now. «The light is finite, but the darkness is infinite. We are all powerless and meaningless before the darkness. The darkness will swallow us all.»

«No», says Akhton. He lifts the clasp from Tamuil's collarbone. It has crumpled like discarded papyrus, its proud brass wings folded in on themselves. It now looks almost like a featureless mask, perhaps a funeral shroud. «The clasp sacrificed itself to save you», Akhton says. «Horus protected you. Horus brought you back.»

A dry laugh erupts from Tamuil. «As the cook lifts the fried fish from the boiling oil. Should the fish be thankful?»

«Your soul will heal», says Nekepti. «It may take time, but you will recover.»

«He cannot be healed who is not sick», says Tamuil. «There is no recovery from the truth. Nothing you say or do will change what I have seen.» He rolls to the side. «Leave me now.»

—

Later that night, Yepsut appears in his tent. «I, too, have seen a glimpse of the truth», she says. «There are more like us.» She opens her hand to reveal a small talisman in the shape of a featureless mask. «We cannot offer hope, for there is none. But there is work to do, and solace to be found in sharing the burden of knowledge.»

Tamuil rises from his bed. «When do we leave?»

Tam's observed symptoms: grew claws which made spellcasting more difficult; grew hideous scars; became angry and fond of torture; was able to turn a death blow into "stable at -1 hit points". Tam, I think, had Accursed, and I suspect had Undying Hatred, Weakening Claws, and possibly Horrific Shock.

Yep, that's the right ones.

Tam's observable symptoms actually started with his compulsion to deliver messy coups de grâce to enemies whenever possible. The fight against the bag lady was the first time, but it came up quite a lot after that. Maybe it seemed like too sensible a thing to do to register as a corruption.

And yeah, getting a –4 penalty on my best skills, a –2 with weapon attacks, and a 5% spell failure chance is pretty harsh. Luckily, I mostly rely on Nez to do the heavy lifting these days, and Nat does well as the party face. Also, I kept forgetting about the spell failure chance, but that probably evened out with me also forgetting about the daily reroll I got from another corruption. The «cheat death» ability from my first corruption is extremely powerful, but I only got to use it once against the Twins in the moon prison, which was hands-down our hardest fight so far.

Ah, so that‘s why the dragon’s in a hurry to leave again!

Winter is not responding. What does that mean? I believe the spell completed successfully, so that should rule out her being dead. I can well imagine that the first sending caught Winter by so much surprise that she didn't know what to say. After the third attempt, though, that is becoming unlikely. It's also possible that she doesn't want me to resume communication with her, even though she encouraged me to do so upon our parting. And I did offer her the option of unsub-Scribe-ing if my missives were unwelcome. (OK, maybe that's why she's giving me the silent treatment. Virgins have no business making dad jokes.)

She might well be in serious trouble. I'm considering scrying on her, but I am loath to breach her privacy even more after I might already be pestering her with daily intrusions into her life. I've also considered reaching out to someone close to her — at the Cathedral in Caliphas, perhaps? —, but I don't know any such people, which is necessary for sending magic. Perhaps Cesadia Wrentz back in Thrushmoor knows more? It's a long shot, but I might as well take it.

In other news, we felt we were as ready as we'd ever be to face the Mad Poet, so we went to see the Yellow King again. Unfortunately, the caravanserai was crawling with unfamiliar monsters and enemies, and the Yellow King was nowhere to be found. In his stead, we found two more vaguely insectoid non-humans of the kind we'd encountered under Lowls' mansion before. They had a dragon-like creature with them who didn't seem keen on violence, but the creepy people forced it to join them in trying to kill Nez and me. (Bit and Lorena were busy fighting some other creepy person belowstairs, and Mrriaál was busy running away from said person under some compulsion. I would have had the means to stop her, but I'm too slow to keep up with her. I really have to do something about that.)

The insectoid people had a vorpal scimitar (!), but between Nez and my spiritual khopesh, we managed to take them down one. I was going to offer truce to the dragon-like creature after its handlers were dead, but Lorena managed to sneak in behind me and blast it with a fireball before the fight was done. That made my point very hard to argue indeed, and the dragonoid almost killed Nez and me for my trouble. Luckily, Nat succeeded where I failed and got the dragonoid to stand down. After I healed it, it informed us that the mistress of its masters had likely locked up the Yellow King in a prison on the moon, and offered to take us there. See, it had a comfortable passenger platform strapped to its back, and was apparently capable of flying all the way up to the moon with its wings. And unlike what the space fiction of my youth suggested, there is actual breathable air up there. Maybe that's just the Dreamworld version of the moon, though, who knows.

In any case, the trip lasted long enough for us to refresh our strength and magic. Emboldened, we disembarked from the dragonoid in the vicinity of the prison and snuck into it through a sewage pipe. The cell block was empty except for some shady Chelaxian woman, whom we released even though she was rude, and an Osirian woman, who seemed apathic and disinterested in freedom, so we left her in her cell. The Chelaxian informed us that someone fitting he Yellow King's description had been taken upstairs by some «twins» who supposedly run the prison.

The upper floor was full of torture implements, which were unused at the moment but connected with tubes to something like an ominous moaning pipe organ. There was an unassuming woman near the organ that we mistook for a hapless maintenance worker, so our first assault was aimed at capturing her without hurting her. I cast the area around the organ into magical silence for fear it might serve some horrid offensive purpose. However, the woman turned out to be an exotic dragon in disguise, so Mrriaál's first attempt to gain a hold on her failed. Instead, we were bathed in the dragon's acid breath. Nez had more luck with her attacks, and she valiantly tore at the dragon's hide and flesh while I tried to keep her alive with healing magic. Mrriaál then took control over the grapple and
brought it to its knees, which should have allowed us to overwhelm it. However, it resisted our combined attacks long enough to breathe once more and retaliate with tooth and claw, snuffing the life out of both Lorena and Mrriaál in an instant.

I had only just recently discovered the magical means to breathe life back into a mortally wounded creature, but could only do so with one of the fallen friends before the window of opportunity closed. Since Mrriaál was within my reach and Lorena wasn't, my choice was forced. I wrested Mrriaál back into the Dreamworld all while Lorena, presumably, woke up screaming on the barge. Nez and Bit's summoned rhinoceros then dealt the dragon its overdue death.

Weakened as we now are, we still have to fight the other twin, who is most likely no less of a menace than the first. I will endeavor to work some magical protection on our group this time to take the edge off the breath weapon, but I suspect it might not be acid again. I hope I will figure it out in time before the rest of us are melted, burned, or frozen to death.

We'll make landfall in a few days to repair the barge. Might as well post another letter to Winter while we do. I feel like trying a different style this time. Sonnets, maybe?

The Land of Dreams! A Yellow King here dwells
Of ſeven rare and precious gifts he tells.
Take heed, o Dreamer, ſhouldſt Thou wish to ſeek
The Madden'd Poet, for with him to ſpeak
Such gifts to gain his favor Thou must bear
Lest he Thy very ſoul to ſhreds do tear.
Once thus equipp'd, the King Himself ſhall whiſk
Thee to yon place upon the Dream-World's diſk
Where Thou wilt face the Poet's with'ring gaze
And from him, by whichever deſp'rate ways,
Reclaim the life that he from Thee once ſtole
That from the ſhards Thou ſhalt be render'd whole.
— But ſwiftly Thou muſt ſeek, and ſwiftly travel,
leſt from want of wholeneſs Thou unravel.

The firſt of gifts Thou findſt upon the hand
Of an accurſèd Viſcount. His demand:
To clear him of his ballroom honor's debt
And dance the promiſ'd dances in his ſtead.
Thus ſhalt Thou win the Viſcount's signet ring,
and coſt it Thee to brave a vampyre's ſting.
The ſecond gift ſhall be a tail of Pard,
which creatures of the Foreſt may reward
in turn for feline fleſh to ſate their maws.
The third demands Thou join an ancient cauſe
Of war, which Thou betrayſt in turn to ſteal
A royal ſkull from grave's anointed ſeal.
— And while Corruption claims Thee piece by piece
Make haſte, or with Thy grueſome death make peace.

The fourth of gifts ſhall lead to Sarnath's halls
that from the lake a horrid fate befalls.
The waters part and, lo!, they do reveal
A thing too large and frightful to be real
In ev'ry bone the tremors Thou ſhalt feel
TO BOGRUK ALL SHALL KNEEL SHALL KNEEL SHALL KNEEL—

Uh

Tam's a guy, and guys are weird when it comes to sex.

More to the point, Tam's a virgin, so what does he know...? All he got out of this shindig was some booze sounds like it's rainin'.

I must say, this is a dark Strange Aeons campaign compared to some I've read. ^^;;

I'm honestly surprised! Isn't darkness the designated theme of this campaign? But yeah, the vivisection part was a bit much.

BTW, I believe Olwen is simplifying the way dying in the Dreamlands works. I think we'd be much more screwed (and need much more downtime to recover each time) if we used the rules as written. Then again, that vivisection happened because of the particular way Olwen applied his own rules to this situation (an improvisation, I believe), so who knows, this might be the darkest timeline after all. >:)

But then again, the Reign of Winter campaign

Heh, I know someone who would happily submit to the Reign of Winter.

OK, no, you had it right, guys are weird.

oh no

i did a bad thing

If a dazzling vampire lady takes a virgin on an extended waltz in the sumptuous light of a frozen sunset and partakes of his blood, is he still a virgin afterwards? I mean, it was a really good dance, despite my two left feet. Lady Bonesplinter sure knows how to lead. And maybe the trance was partly due to the blood loss, but still.

I decided to lay of the letter-writing for a few days after our first foray into the Dreamlands. That ghostly shopkeeper killed half of us without breaking a sweat, and did horrible things to the rest of us. It took me two days' worth of restorative spells to purge the nightmare curse that his touch burnt into our minds, and heal the damage to our sanity. I am still left with scars on my face, which I fear are not simply injuries but rather manifestations of the ongoing unraveling of our fractured selves. The others show such signs as well: Bit's bouts of misanthropy, Lorena's antisocial tendencies, Mrriaál's occasional regressions into animalism. We must reclaim our lost memories before we literally come apart at the seams.

At least the Yellow King seemed friendly enough, and unexpectedly forthcoming with helpful pointers as to the gifts required to appease the Mad Poet. Obtaining the viscount's signet ring at the ball was pleasant enough, even if we did have to fight some demonic spider creatures in the rafters. At least I got the dance of my life out of it!

And now we're about to ask the zoogs for a leftover tail from the rainbow-colored cats that they supposedly eat. The zoog at Briarstone seemed happy to leave us in peace when most other things wanted us dead, so I'm hoping they might be amenable to talking (or nuzzling with their tentacles snouts, which I how I remember the one at Briarstone talking to Mrriaál). At least we killed what's undoubtedly a monstrous predator on zoogs upon arrival in their Enchanted Forest. That forest, by the way, is so large that we can walk on the branches like on roads, and each leaf is wide enough to build a house on.

Whatever gods prepared this path for us certainly didn't spare any expenses on the scenery.

I couldn't stop her. Winter's insistence that her superiors wanted her back in the capital and wouldn't care to pursue Lowls' investigation further now that he had left Ustalav, took the wind out of the sails of my argumentation. She was certainly nice about it, and invited me to keep in touch, be it through mundane or magical ways. She even patted my shoulder once. My mind keeps circling on what that meant. Was that a soldier's version of a hug, or something you would do to console a child?

I'm glad Mrriaál kept Bit at bay during that conversation. Bit had been showing some morbid interest in my «behavior» toward Winter and would probably have said something monumentally out of place. Given my recent anger management issues, I don't know how that would have ended.

Anyway, I've decided to write my first letter to Winter in the literary form of the famed half-orc bard Lhim Riq. Hopefully I'll be able to mail it next time we make landfall. Here's what I have so far.

We're sailing the Sellen by barge,
a halfling ex-pirate in charge.
The boat and the woman
have one thing in common:
Both aren't particularly large.

The ship with red sails in pursuit
is certainly up to no good.
Dream-spawned creatures
swam to reach us
and tried to turn us to food.

A halfling by name of Lorena
depends on the dark to sustain her.
She hides in a nook
and reads book after book —
all attempts to say hi are in vain now.

I have tried, as a scribe by my trade,
with the sorting of books to lend aid.
But knowledge of Aklo
— alas — I lack, so
it won't do much good, I'm afraid.

Our wizard thinks it's ordinary
that Nat now looks like a fairy,
and not like a bird.
I find that absurd
and more than a little bit scary.

Mrriaál reads the writings Pnakotic.
So far they seem rather quixotic.
It could be worse —
I hope no curse
will emerge and turn her psychotic.

Lorena's researching has yielded
a ritual key. When we wield it,
it opens a door
in the barge's floor
as if the deck hat concealed it.

It leads to a desert oasis
— if that is indeed what this place is.
We search this malign
locale to divine
how to follow the Mad Poet's traces.

Mrriaál had been right about the stelae. There was indeed a third one in the basement of Lowls' manor. The secret door in Pharasma's face led us down some stairs and into a short corridor, one side of which opened up on the stela. It looked a bit different than the other two in town, mostly because of the thick patina of tried blood that caked the floor around it. It must have received a lot of blood sacrifices.

The other side of the corridor revealed a throne room. A lady wearing fine clothes and a courtly sword occupied it and immediately started attacking us with spells. I'm pretty sure she would have gotten into Mrriaál's mind if it hadn't been for my magic circle. I should wear those more often. Somehow I feel a bit safer inside them, even if mind-bendingly terrible thing are happening.

The lady had a grotesque verminous beast with leathery wings with her. When I sent Nez to attack it, she set off a trap in the floor, but dodged the blast with a spectacular leap to the side. She's growing stronger and more magnificent every day. Mrriaál drank a potion and vanished in to thin air.

The winged beast kept Nez and me at bay, while Lorena and Bit returned the favor by blinding her and dropping her in a pit, respectively. The lady used some kind of magic to fly out of her pit, but Mrriaál had already crossed the room by then and grabbed her by the legs. The lady put up a surprisingly good fight, managing to get off a spell despite Mrriaál's lethal embrace and later channeling a painful amount of dark miasma into the room. I guess she was a priest like me, even though she looked more like a mage. Eventually, Mrriaál managed to squeeze the sense from her and left her to slide back down into the pit.

Meanwhile, though, things had gotten hairy on my side of the room. The winged monster hadn't gone down easily, and a nightmarish hound-like monstrosity had manifested from one of the room's corners. It shook itself into a frenzy and brutally assailed Nez, while Lorena seemed to wither under its otherworldly stare. It would have killed Nez several times over if I hadn't all but emptied the superior healing wand we recently found into her, while Nez' powerful bites didn't hurt it as much as I would have expected. When Mrriaál was finally done with the priestess and joined our fight, it finally died. Looks like a magic weapon was needed to properly break its skin. I should figure out a way to grant magical power to Nez' bite.

After the fight, we went to touch the stela to receive our visions. I saw myself back at the edge of that alien city again, and the Yellow Sign was dominating one horizon, growing ever bigger and threatening to engulf the world. But then another symbol, looking much like Sarenrae's but black and inverted (bad sign?), rose at the other horizon to contest the Yellow Sign. Somehow its appearance heartened me, and then I was back in Lowls' basement. Bit then claimed that this «black anc» was what my holy symbol showed back in Briarstone. That's nonsense — it's always been that ominous make-up-wearing eye. Are we not even sane enough to agree on what's plain to see?

In any case, our work at the manor seemed completed, so we left the estate again. That's when we heard the screaming. Chaos reigned in several places of the city, in particular the harbor and the Pharasmin chapel. For some reason, Mrriaál insisted on going to the harbor even though the chapel contained the entirety of our scant few allies in this gods-forsaken town that otherwise hates our guts. (Yes, I have an additional reason to prioritize the chapel, but even so.)

So we raced to the chapel and barely made it in time before a veritable horde of surprisingly well-armed, agile, and coordinated undead people charged its door. They had apparently come from the fort, so they were probably the remains of the fort's former mercenaries. Our appearance drew half of them away while the others continued to hack at the door. We fought our challengers as best we could, which was rather pitiful without Mrriaál's might. Again, Nez' heroic efforts were mitigated by the enemies' unnatural resistance against her non-magical bite. My magical khopesh cut true, though in my hands even the sharpest weapon is a moderate threat at best. Both Bit and Lorena found some hidden reserves in themselves (courtesy of a flying level-up) and were able to throw mighty fireballs into the midst of the undead, but they proved resistant against fire as well. It wasn't going to be a quick fight.

From behind the door, Winter tirelessly channeled the will of her goddess in the form of funerary ashes that burned white-hot when they touched the undead, but one of them survived just long enough to breach the door and attack her. Between Bit's magic, Winter's dagger and Cesadia's crossbow, the undead fell, but not before wounding Winter with a sword stroke. Just about then, the rest of us managed to whittle down the last of the undead that had come to face us, and the chapel was saved, along with all the refugees we had relocated from Briarstone.

I hear Mrriaál had her hands full fighting fish-folk slavers at the harbor, but prevailed against them with sheer might. It was horribly irresponsible of her to go alone, but it did work out in the end. She probably saved dozens of lives from slavery and death with her decision.

In the aftermath, even Cesadia (the lady from the Sleepless Agency) had to admit we had indeed changed from our evil selves from two weeks ago, and informed us that a barge was going to arrive in Thrushmoor soon that could take us all the way to Katheer. We expect to spend much of the time underway studying the many arcane tomes we secured from Lowls' mansion. Maybe we can figure out what has been done to our minds, and how to reverse it.

I intend to bring all the expensive spirits we found at Lowls' along onto the barge. After all that pain and horror, I'm looking forward to some relaxing, peaceful downtime.

I suggested hunkering down in the mages' house and recuperating our strength, but the others wanted to press on into the main building so as not to give the cultists time to fortify it. Lorena did some scouting and reported some guards off duty just behind the main entrance, so we rushed them and took them down easily. Lorena was just going to take a look upstairs when she started screaming... it turned out some freakish otherworldly squid had grabbed her in its tentacles and was sucking her blood through a myriad of imperceptible tendrils. We had to fight it from the claustrophobic confines of a corridor, and it simply shook off the magical assaults our mages threw at it, so the fight didn't go well at first. Unlike most things we'd fought so far, it was a match for Mrriaál's wrestling might, and each of its foul touches sent a wave of debilitating nausea through our bodies. Just as we finally managed to turn the tables on it, more cultists came through the door and joined the fray, focusing on me in particular. One exceptionally nasty swordswoman had approached me invisible and would have run me through with her rapier, had I not turned aside at that very moment by sheer coincidence. Luckily, I was able to cloud her mind with my dark words of power long enough for Nez and the others to take her down.

With that, it seemed, we had broken the back of the cultist's response. The remainder of the upper floor was empty bedrooms, including Lowls' private quarters. In his study, we found a lot of books on occult themes and notes on his research. It appeared Lowls had some infatuation with the aesthetic of Qadiran culture, much as my former employer's late husband had had with with Osirion. What is it with nobles and exotic lands?

In any case, Lowls' notes contained the logistics and planning for an expedition to Katheer, which explains why he is absent at the moment. We suspect we will eventually have to track him down. I don't mind, as it would seem I have braved the desert before. At least I'll get my fill of sunlight.

There was also some writing on a deal struck with the Mad Poet, which involved our very minds as bargaining chips. I even had a very vivid vision of our whole group, including Lowls himself, meeting the Mad Poet somewhere in a fever-dream rendition of a desert oasis. The Mad Poet was clad in Qadiran garb, so I suspect his oasis is tethered to Qadira somehow, even if I doubt it is part of the actual material world. In that case, chasing Lowls to Katheer might serve a double purpose. If the Mad Poet somehow received our minds as payment for some service rendered, perhaps these minds are still in his possessions in one way or another, and there might be hope for us to reclaim them.

Oh, and Nez was there with us in the vision. We must be old friends! Maybe we go all the way back to my time in Osirion. That would certainly explain a lot. Tyrant lizards aren't exactly common in Ustalav.

We spent the night in Lowls' bedroom and continued our exploration of the mansion in the morning. The attic was haunted by a lady twisted by madness as well as some horrible bodily affliction. We decided to leave her alone.

In the ground floor, we found a trap door to the cellars, which contained some more excellent wines, a large number of sarcophagi, and a strange creature impersonating a Qadiran woman featuring mandibles and spindly claws. Apparently she knew us from before, but preferred death over talking. This seems to be a theme among these cultists. The woman had been working on a corpse, trying to incorporate some kind of hinged plate mechanism into it. We identified the corpse as Accuser Omari, who had been sent from the capital to investigate Lowls' strange undertakings. I fear we will find the other missing people in a similar condition.

Oh, and we a magical khopesh in one of the sarcophagi, just like the one I'm carrying, except it was magical and glowing with a purple aura. What are the odds? My friends couldn't identify the magic, but I've decided to wield it for the time being. It seems rude to say no to such a personalized gift of fate.

There was also an undead man who insisted that we look at the yellow sign on the wall. We killed him, once again finding Bit's magical pit more of a hindrance than a benefit... at least I can make Mrriaál fly now. And we found a passage to the estate's well, whose shaft extended quite a bit farther down and branched off into some narrow side canals. Mrriaál, still flying, descended into the shaft to investigate, but was assaulted by many rats and a man made of more rats stitched together by their tails. Since we couldn't come to aid, she simply retreated back up the shaft, and we decided to leave it at that. One of the canals heads off in the direction of the town fort, though. We wondered whether that was linked to the disappearances near the fort.

The cellar ended under one of the side buildings that normally served as the estate's kitchen, but now hosted more of the bestial thugs we had first met at the guardhouse. There were quite a lot of them, but between Bit's fireball and our combat prowess, we made short work of them.

It looked like we had explored everything at that point, but we knew there were still quite a few abducted people still unaccounted for. We returned to the cellar and indeed found a secret door behind a wall-filling rendition of Pharasma's face. Once more unto the breach, then.

Lot going on right now, keeping it short.

We paid a visit to the fort to investigate the recent disappearances of people on their way to the fort. The officer in charge was a certain Barawyn Cesyll. She seemed nice but overworked, given that the magistrate Paget had not returned from a recent mission and most of their mercenaries had bailed on them. She wouldn't let us in to investigate, claiming that there had been no strange occurrences in the fort itself. She seemed trustworthy, so we left it at that.

So we finally went to Lowls' manor and knocked at the gate. When the guard wouldn't let us in, Mrriaál tried to grab him through the sliding hatch he had been peering through, but failed. Worried that he might sound an alarm, I wrought some form of magic on Mrriaál that allowed her to fly over the dense brambles that walled in the compound, and to enter the guardhouse from the courtyard. Yes, I can make people fly now. How wild is that? I always thought only wizards could do that sort of thing. Once these troubles are over, I'm going to use that power on myself. It must be exhilarating. I really hope I get to keep my magic when I reclaim my life.

In any case, Mrriaál grabbed the head of the guards, flew him high above the ground and dropped him to his doom, while Bit teleported through the gate and opened it for us so we could fight the two bestial grunt soldiers in the guardhouse. To make things worse, animal-shaped parts of the brambles separated themselves from the wall and attacked us like dogs, while two unarmored nobles casually strolled out of a nearby building to watch us struggle while they sipped wine. From their dress and unimpressed demeanor, I was certain they were mages. At the height of the battle with the grunts and the walking bushes, Lorena decided to aggravate the mages by casting a magical spiderweb on them — and sure enough, they started to return fire with their spells. One of them threw a beam of fire at me but mostly just set the web (and herself) on fire, but then caught Mrriaál in gales of uncontrollable laughter. I eventually managed to snap her out of it by approaching her with a magic circle (I can do that too now?). To Lorena's credit, she blinded the two mages with some explosion of glittering motes, which put them on the defense and bought us enough time to turn the table on them. Bit summoned some kind of mighty bull to trample and gore one of the mages while Nez made short work of another who had had the temerity to attack her with a dagger. Before the last mage died, trapped in one of Bit's pits with the rampaging bull, we tried to offer her a surrender, but she preferred death, threatening that «he» would return and end us all. Not sure if she meant Lowls or the King in Yellow.

We went on to plunder the house of the mages and found an inordinate amount of fine clothes and some excellent wine from pre-liberation Ravounel. We certainly felt like we deserved a toast after our successful breaking and entering, especially after the sobering encounters of the last day. There might have been a fair amount of luck involved, but I do believe all of us are starting to find our stride in battle. Bit shook the sky with a mighty fireball today, Lorena is discovering new debilitating powers, and I was pleasantly surprised at how courageous and deadly Nez proved in close combat, especially seeing how frail she seemed only yesterday. I guess she just needed a good meal and a night's sleep. And three new hit dice and two feats, courtesy of Boon Companion. ;o) Even the bolstering effect of my trance preaching appears to have redoubled, even though I still don't understand a word of it, and I did manage to land the occasional sword blow.

Make your peace, Lowls. We're coming.

I have no explanation for the bond the tyrant lizard and I share. We just clicked together like lodestones in the scant hours that I've know her so far. She understands more of my words than an animal has any business to, and sometimes even I feel like I understand what she's thinking. For one thing, I now have no doubt that she's a she, even though I don't know any more about lizard anatomy than I did before. The Fuchur from the books was male, so I decided to rename her. The name Abkhadnezar imposed itself on me, and it feels strangely appropriate for a proud beast like her. I suspect the secret partition of my mind that retains my knowledge of priestly magic must have come up with it.

My conscious self almost immediately shortened it to Nezar, though, and finally to Nez. If my other self should object to that, let it come forth and face me. I have a lot of questions for it.

The cave didn't end where we found Nez. It apparently belonged to a Druid with a penchant for all things fungal and who worked commissions an alchemist and poisoner. She didn't respond to attempts at parley and fought us instead. It was ugly and messy, but we won. Let's just say the mages on both sides were quite a bit less in control of the battlefield than those in the storybooks. Good thing Mrriaál at least knows what she's doing. Were it not for her crippling self-doubt, she would be unstoppable.

We spent the night in the cave and went back to report to Winter in the morning. On the way, we were assaulted by a terrible undead horror that repeatedly incapacitated most of us with its unbearable wail and almost tore Mrriaál to ribbons. It took all our combined effort, as well as a large amount of luck, to take it down before it succeeded. Apparently it was the remnant of a woman whom Mrriaál pummeled to death in her recent past. I suppose it's the worst deed any of us have remembered so far, but there's no saying what other atrocities still lie buried in our memories. Mrriaál took it pretty badly. Can't blame her, really. Bit also snapped into her insufferably negative alter ego during the fight, and didn't revert to her proper self for a while.

Personally, I've resolved to distancing myself from our past sins until such as time as we understand under what circumstances exactly we commited them, and how they were purged from our minds. Our past had been «sacrificed», that dream lady had said to Mrriaál. I'm still hoping that means we might not be completely responsible for those deeds. Repression is not the healthiest of strategies, but it keeps me functioning for the time being, and we certainly depend on that.

We also paid a visit to the eldritch obelisks that loom over the town, and had disconcerting visions while touching them. I saw myself hurtled through an immeasurable abyss of utter black void only to end up on a foreign world covered in vast but sterile cityscapes, all steeped in the sickly miasma of the Yellow Sign that took the Sun's rightful place in the sky. What unfathomable corruption can pervert something as pure as the Sun? It's just not right... It's just not right...

In good news, I stopped at a bakery on the way to the chapel and the baker hated our guts. That's not the good part obviously. He denied it, too, but it was plain to see. I don't suppose all bakers in town hate us, but I must have subconsciously picked the bakery that I used to frequent. I can see why, though; the pastries are excellent. Winter seemed pleased with the pień o szokolať she picked from the bag. That's the good news: I now know something that Winter likes.

It's beyond denying now. I am evil.

Or at least I was, as recently as two weeks ago, before we all went to Briarstone. Apparently, I sunk a stash of emergency supplies at dock 19 in Thrushmoor in case I needed to bail. Not only was it clearly meant for me alone, but it included a wand of an almost comically evil spell called «Death Kneel», which sucks the life force out of dying people for a fleeting personal benefit. There's my holy symbol on the bag, and some guy named Keldrin saw me sink it.

And as if that weren't enough, everybody and their dog in this town apparently knows us and hates us. Looks like we weren't merely evil, but terribly obnoxious about it, too. I still can't believe Bit sent someone to the healers for a week in a barroom brawl. Bit!

At least we all agree that we used to be better people in our remembered past, and that we'd strive to be better people again. I hope we can make amends for our past deeds before someone lynches us for them. It's really hard to convince anyone of our story, unfortunately. I might have snapped at that Keldrin guy more than he deserved.

Come to think of it, I do seem to have sudden bouts of anger recently that I don't remember from my childhood. Maybe that's the evil in me struggling to get out. My friends do give me strange looks whenever I make sure the monster we just fought is dead-dead. That's just prudent, though, isn't it?

I have half a mind to stop using my magic, since it supposedly stems from the worship of an evil god, but it's just been too critical to our survival thus far. I really should figure out what god that is, though.

In good news, I made a friend! I was worried when I saw Mrriaál cut it free from the vines that had entangled it — it is a dangerous predator after all — but our act of killing its jailer (a ghostly fungus monster with a giant maw) seems to have convinced it to adopt us as family. It appears to follow me in particular, and displays a curious amount of affection to me. I have to admit it's growing on me. I named it Fuchur, after a benevolent dragon in a story I once read (well, half-read... that story just wouldn't end).

Apparently he's called Falcor in the English version...

Bit called it a «tea wreck» for some reason. I rather think it's a tyrant lizard like the ones in Tolguthic Park. It's much smaller than in the book, but I suppose it could be a juvenile.

Baby Rex, doo doo doodoo doodoo
Baby Rex, doo doo doodoo doodoo
Baby Rex, doo doo doodoo doodoo
Baby Rex!

And speaking of friends: Winter let us crash in the Pharasmin temple rather than dumping us at the inn, and she vouched for us in the investigators' guild house when the locals once more proved hostile to us. She even called us her friends. That felt unexpectedly good. I'm afraid I'm slipping headlong into an honest-to-gods crush on her. Well, that makes at least one part of my character that I don't feel bad about, even if it does scare me a bit.

One thing's for sure, though. Sooner rather than later, we'll have to face Count Lowls and figure out just what exactly he did to us. It's not going to be pretty.

at the sheer horror of it

You know, dressing up as an inside-out iron maiden and then grinding people to death against yourself is also pretty horrible. ;o)

Since Tam now remembers all scenes from his backstory, I might as well post it here.

A boy is thirteen years old. The atrium is large and intimidating; he has never seen anything like it. The kindly old servant has taken him up a curved flight of stairs, through a glass-roofed corridor to a comparatively unassuming door. She gives a measured knock and pushes the door open.

Baroness Svertova turns from her vantage point at the window and fixes the boy with her gaze. He freezes, but the servant gently nudges him through the door. He remembers to bow as he's been instructed. «My lady», he utters.

«I am told you are good with a pointed pen», she says without preamble. The boy nods. It feels vain not to relativize, but he suspects the Baroness has no patience for humility.

She points to a venerable desk of dark carved wood bearing stack of paper.

«I have half a hundred invitations to send by the morrow, and my own scribe is indisposed with an illness. Are you up to the task?»

The boy marvels at the hand-made paper, the crystal inkwell and the gilt pen set. No doubt they alone are worth more than half the village. A tray with steaming tea and biscuits awaits next to it.

He swallows. «Yes, m'lady.»

—

A boy is fourteen years old. The Baroness is busy, so the servant has shown him to the library. He gawks at the towering shelves full of books, scrolls, and antiquities, and at the expensive-looking maps that fill the walls between. Many of the maps bear exotic writing unknown to him, but the largest of them all says OSIRION in proud gilt letters.

«Ah, boy, lend me a hand, will you?»

The boy startles; he hadn't realized the library was in use. A greying man sits hunched at a desk in the far corner, peering intently at the sprawling spread of documents before him through his spectacles.

«Yes, my lord», the boy says. He recognizes the face from the painting in the atrium: Lord Svertov himself.

«Fetch me that clasp from the shelf over there», he says.

The boy complies. The clasp is cool in his hands; smooth gilded brass. «Where do you want it, my lord?»

«I suppose Professor Gorolyushina will want to see it», the baron says, more to himself than to the boy, a parchment in each hand. «Hold on to it for a moment, will you? I'm afraid I'm a bit inconvenienced just now.»

The boy studies the clasp: A stylized bird of prey, long wings outstretched as if to reach from horizon to horizon, a ring in each claw. Even though it is well preserved, the boy can sense a dizzying depth of age and history in it. It draws him in, mesmerizes him. An unfamiliar warmth spreads through him.

When the Baroness speaks his name, it takes him a moment to regain his bearings. «My lady?»

Lady Svertova furrows her brow and nods towards his hands. «Who allowed you to touch that?»

The boy swallows and points toward the library. «Your lord husband, my lady.»

«My lord husband», she says with a steel edge in her voice.

The boy blushes. «Begging your very great pardon, my lady», he says. «I didn't mean to presume. It's just, his portrait in the hall says Lord Baron Slavomir Svertov, so...»

«Lord Baron Slavomir Svertov was my husband», the Baroness says slowly. «He died ten years ago.»

The boy freezes, then turns around. The library is empty.

—

A boy is fifteen years old. The evening rain is falling in heavy sheets; he can barely make out the venerable stone building in front of him. The museum is closed at this hour, but there is light in the windows of the adjoined residence. The boy lifts the heavy ring and knocks. After a while, a small viewport opens, followed moments later by the door itself. Professor Gorolyushina lifts a hand holding an everburning candle and her elaborately carved cane while bracing a hastily donned coat against the cold draught with the other.

«This had better be important», the professor says.

The boy opens his hand, revealing the clasp.

«Gods almighty», the professor says.

I bawled like a child when I saw the Sun again, and even now I have to take care not to soak the water with tears of relief. My comrades seemed rather indifferent. How impoverished does a soul have to be to be impervious to the Sun's all-encompassing splendor? At least some of the asylum's residence had the good sense to run into the open and dance in the radiance.

In short, we killed four of these fog-spouting dreamers, Zandalus' bodyguards, Zandalus himself, and the Tatterman (apparently a separate creature that was unfettered by Zandalus' death). It was hard and grueling work, and we all bled for it. I personally was knocked senseless more than once, among other things by the geriatric serial killer who turned out to be almost as good at grappling as Mrriaál. I admit I went overboard a bit when I finally came to and saw Mrriaál squeezing the life from her. Not sure what got into me there. I might want to buy new boots, though; I'm not sure I'll ever get all that gore out again.

I also didn't much care for being trapped in another one of Bit's gods-damned pits later, fighting a dreamer one-on-one (and losing, although not by much).

I finally shook some information about my holy symbol from Bit. Apparently, my god was popular in ancient Osirion and ancient Thassilon. It's very little information, come to think of it, but it did trigger a cascade of memories. I must have spent much of the last years in Osirion. I distinctly remember the desert Sun and the endless reaches of sand.

In a related matter, I finally managed what I believe to be channeled energy. Unfortunately, it did not heal anyone, but hurt a number of enemies (albeit by a laughably small degree) and left two of them awestruck enough to forget all about fighting for a moment. Is this the negative energy that the evil priests send forth in the stories? If so, the others might be right about my moral state after all. I fear the worst. I only hope I can find professional guidance and atonement before the evil slumbering in me reclaims me.

At least we broke the curse and freed everyone from Zandalus and his nightmares. That's gotta count for something. How about that, I might actually end on a positive note for once. Must be the sunlight's doing.

I'll start with the good news for once; gods know I need it.

We found another sane person in the asylum. He's a doctor and seems to know quite a bit about the cult around Zandalus, seeing as he lives among them. He knows some healing magic and apparently «takes care» of the cultists, which is why they haven't killed him yet. Many others haven't been so lucky -- there are a number of crucified bodies with bags over their heads lining their living area. Apparently, a serial killer known for putting bags over her victims' heads is acting as Zandalus' bodyguard and enforcer.

There's a dauntingly large number of cultists, and going upstairs to face Zandalus would no doubt be suicide at this point. But the doctor told us that the yellow fog is created by devout followers of Zandalus who spew it forth in vast quantities, and there is one in a tower nearby that we might be able to reach and kill. No doubt they tried to do the same thing to the administrator and failed for lack of devotion on her part; hence her rather insignificant amount of fog production. I'm glad we didn't kill her. Maybe she isn't too far gone after all. In any case, we now have a lead on how to combat this thrice-accursed fog, and I'm grateful for that.

I'm afraid I'm already running out of good news. We also put the undead spirit of a young girl to rest with the help of her living brother, but it was a pretty horrid experience for everyone involved. Oh, and I'm really glad we didn't try to open the door with blood droplets oozing from its pores that we found yesterday. We now know what's on the other side: A corpse sitting on a chair, bleeding blood that falls sideways to land on that door. We don't know what the blood would have done to us if we had haplessly opened the door, but we're staying the hells away from it. The path of the blood is blocking access to a small side room, though -- could turn out to be important. I tried to staunch the corpse's wounds with my magic (my magic... still can't get used to the notion), but it only slowed the blood for a moment. Perhaps a proper healing spell would have a more lasting effect, as with the eye in the wall?

Unfortunately, we suffer bodily harm so gods-damned regularly that we need every bit of healing for ourselves for the time being. I was lifted to the ceiling and dropped on my nose by the haunted stuffed birds (ouch, by the way), gnawed on by a swarm of bat-like worms, and ambushed by ghouls while erring through the fog. We only prevailed against the swarm because Mrriaál had a seemingly limitless supply of lamp oil flasks on herself, which she speculated belonged to her teddybear. What business does a toy bear have with fuel? Does he lead a secret life as an arsonist when Mrriaál is asleep?

And gods, the ghouls. We witnessed a hallucinating man bound to a bed transforming into a ghoul before our very eyes. Mrriaál is convinced I did that, because I was trying to stir the man awake by his foot at the time. Luckily, Lorena saw a wisp of yellow fog escape from his mouth as he did, or I might have believed it myself. Bit informed us that anyone injured by a ghoul will surely die, and sure enough, when managed to gouge furrows into my arm with its claws despite its restraints, I felt every one of my muscles seize and lock me into a grotesque statue of myself. I lived through all nine hells until the affliction passed a few moments later. Are Bit and Mrriaál trying to drive me insane on purpose? In any case, it's working.

And when we ventured into the fog on the doctor's advice, barely seeing our own hands before our eyes, not one but three of these hellish creatures assailed us. I was paralyzed again before I could even land a sword blow, and when Bit tried to save me by opening a pit below two of the ghouls, I fell in as well. Paralyzed, tangled up with a ghoul and isolated from my companions, I once again stared into the abyss of certain death. It was only for the heroism of my companions, two of whom leapt into the pit after me and suffered injuries and paralysis themselves, that I am alive to write these lines. Even now, I'm having a hard time believing we didn't lose anyone to the ghouls. Perhaps our gods are testing our mettle, or are using us as pawns in one of their games, but if they saw fit to inflict this trial upon us, they clearly consider us expendable.

A positive note to end on? I am slowly making headway with my magical powers. I am starting to believe that I might indeed be a priest of some sort; the parallels with the workings of Winter and that doctor are undeniable. Yesterday, Winter sent forth a veritable wave of life energy that healed and revitalized everyone around. I remember Father Ilya doing the same thing for the village congregation back home. Surely that is the mark of a Good priest? To my chagrin, I have not been able to manifest anything of the sort so far, but I feel I might be close. I hope it will help me lay my fears to rest when I finally do so. Bit is still clammed up about her recent insight into my holy symbol, even after I confronted her again today. I swear... if she won't tell me her secret tonight, I'll just have to dig it out of her with a DAG—

Oh no.

I forgot something. Bad news, of course.

When the ratling mage struck us with his fear magic for the second time, Bit underwent a sudden change of personality. In stark contrast to her usual cool and detached self, she turned bitter and vicious, cursed and demeaned us and our incompetence, adopted a strange churlish gait, and even invoked someone called Hastur (God, devil, demon, worse?) at one point. Even Bit's friendly parrot turned into a cold-hearted raven for the duration. She reverted to her former self a while later, but I keep wondering whether that was one of her pre-existing conditions — a hidden personality of hers surfacing under duress? — or some evil spirit who exploited a slip in Bit's composure to possess her for a while.

And there was another strange occurrence with Lorena... she had suffered grave harm from that lightning shock and could barely walk without fainting, yet she suddenly regained some strength after dealing a bloody scratch to Bit's shoulder. Did she use some sort of blood magic to leech off a part of Bit's very life force? And when the volcra swooped down on her to abduct her to certain death or worse, I got the distinct impression that she didn't even try to resist.

I haven't witnessed a similar episode with Mrriaál or myself, but then again, would I even know if I suffered one myself...?

We have to get out of here before before the madness claims us all.

It just occurred to me that we could use the Phylactery of Faithfulness to figure out whether killing the administrator would be a good idea. Let's give it a try next time.

Let's start with the bad news again.

First of all: Gods almighty, we are so bad at this. That ratling mage single-handedly won two fights against us, sending the mighty Mrriaál fleeing with panic, conjuring another one of those horrid rat swarms to engulf us in a tide of filthy teeth (I swear, next time that happens, I'll lose my gods-damned mind), and hammering us with those inescapable magical strikes. At least I had managed to calm down his two disgusting giant pet rats with some sort of spell; otherwise, we might all have been rat food.

The ratling mage allowed us to retreat when two of us had fallen, which Mrriaál interpreted as weakness on his part, especially since he had resorted to what looked like a fallback spell toward the end, even if it was significantly more powerful than that of our own two depleted mages. But after Winter patched us up and we returned to finish the job, it turned out his power was far from exhausted. Again, he sent Mrriaál running with terror, and dealt us strike after painful strike while we struggled with his stinking pet rats, which had evidently recovered from my spell. Lorena was fighting from a concealed perch in the broken wall, but was still almost killed by a mighty discharge of lightning. (To be honest, though, I'm not even sure it was the ratling's doing. Maybe this cursed place itself is trying to kill us.) And when Mrriaál had finally returned and closed her hands around the gods-damned ratling, he managed to invoke an even mightier form of magic and whisked himself away in the blink of an eye.

Not only is the mage still alive, but he seems to stay out of our way for now. No doubt even his seemingly endless resources must have dried up by now, and we could probably take him in another fight. If he just waits it out until tomorrow, he'll be back at full power and I have another rat bath to look forward to. At least we found an amulet that should help Mrriaál resist his fear magic next time around. Hopefully that will be enough. Maybe we're even luckier and he decided to leave for good — he did say he knew a way out, after all. Come to think of it, he did quite a bit of talking, always urging us to stay away from his lair. I wonder whether it would only have taken a brief open conversation with him to reach a non-aggression agreement. It's probably too late for that now, after our repeated blatant attempts on his life and our murder of his friends and pets. Gods, are we the bad guys?

Ugh, I'm doing it again. I can't afford to lose sight of the bigger picture here. That ratling mage was living in part of the asylum overrun by the monster invasion, and thus is certainly part it himself. I highly doubt the asylum had been housing ratlings before this all started. And the other ratfolk attacked us on sight, after all. Just around the corner, we had found the remains of people who had tried to barricade themselves in a room and had been slaughtered when the monsters broke through a wall to reach them. This is the kind of thing we're up against. They are the bad guys.

More bad news: The yellow fog outside the asylum is even more dangerous than we thought. When we ventured outside to access a remote door, a winged horror dove from the fog above, struck down Lorena and tried to carry her away into oblivion. Only through Mrriaál's heroic determination was she spared this unthinkable fate. I've taken to calling those creatures volcra, given the obvious parallels, but apparently I'm the only one here who read about Saint Alina the Heliokineticist as a child.

To add insult to injury, that remote door turned out to be a dead end. Only a broken stair leading downwards and ending in mid-air above a pitch-black abyss in which there was absolutely nothing to see, haha, certainly not a building-sized demon snake waking from its sleep to end us all, how crazy would that be, right?! Hahahahahahahahaha...

Where was I? Right, good news. We found the asylum's administrator sitting catatonic in a puddle of blood with yellow fog billowing from her silently screaming mouth. Alright, that didn't sound all that pleasant, but as I see it, the fog is our main enemy here, and for all we know it might disperse quickly if we were to stop its source. We tried knocking her out and holding her nose and mouth shut, but that didn't work. Then again, we didn't want to do it for long enough to suffocate her, since her condition might be reversible for all we know. She seems surrounded by an aura of sleep that claimed Mrriaál before she could touch the administrator, but she was rewarded with a dream of some elderly woman — an ally perhaps? — who informed her that the administrator's books contained our history and that our past had been sacrificed.

We did, in fact, locate her journal, in which she chronicled the treatment of the patient Zandalus, who seemed to have some clairvoyant powers. The local count, a certain Hasterton Lowls, appears to have visited him often and to have attempted an experimental treatment based on a book called the Chain of Nights. The records end there, which lead us to believe that the experiment caused all this horror in the first place. Perhaps we're inside Zandalus' nightmares right now, or perhaps the treatment released them into reality? In any case, we also found evidence that the four of us used to work for Lowls and were admitted to the asylum recently with a strange case of group amnesia. Interesting.

Come to think of it, we found a rather lavish living space near the entrance of the asylum that could be the administrator's residence. Through a window, we could see that an open-air stone path leads from one of its walls (secret door?) to another door in the outside wall of the asylum. Perhaps that's where the administrators most private books are stored? Too bad we'd have to venture outside to figure that out, and what is perhaps worse, the residence contains two gruesome corpses and a cage of taxidermic birds that somehow chirp... no doubt we'd have to face some undead horrors if we were to attempt to locate the secret door.

And yet, we may soon run out of options and choose to brave these horrors in return for a chance to escape this hell. Personally, I suspect we might have to kill the administrator to stop the fog from replenishing. Let's be honest, if we'd found a ratling spewing yellow fog, we'd have killed him in a heartbeat. Maybe this is another case of a human face lulling us into a false sense of sympathy. And even if the administrator could technically still be saved in her current state — wouldn't it be preferable to sacrifice her life in order to save those of the dozens of people in Winter's chapel? The longer we wait, the more lives will be lost to the monsters and the madness.

Gods, what am I saying? This place is getting to me more than I'd like to admit. What I'd give to feel some honest-to-gods sunlight on my face again; that'd knock some sense back into me.

They rest, worn out. Bit connects what she sees. Tam's holy symbol. N… She knows, recoils, stays away from the scribe, no closer, sense of danger. Yet his magic is helpful, heals. How is it possible. The Black Pharaoh. How?

WAIT, WHAT?!

I need to get my thoughts straight. Writing usually helps.

The good news is that we've found a refuge promising as much safety as can be hoped for under the circumstances. Even just entering the chapel soothes my soul, and unlike last night, I slept well. Bit apparently refused to sleep in the chapel and paid for it in nightmares. I find it reassuring that the numen of the gods still counts for something in this place — it can't be quite as godsforsaken as I had feared. Winter is a godssend; she's single-handedly keeping the peace among our sorry band, and she appears to be a more competent healer than I am. A more competent anything, for that matter.

Some limits to the chapel's safety have already become obvious. A good part of the refugees are crazy, to begin with. There's also a fair number of wounded, and our food will run out in a couple of weeks or so. The rest of the asylum appears to be overrun with monstrous creatures. Perhaps most disconcertingly, Lorena committed an act of vandalism against a statue of Desna — Desna! — in a fit of rage, later claiming she had found her too pretty. I fear the forces of madness are seeking to infiltrate the sanctity of the chapel and to sow discord among us. What if the next bout of insanity will lead to murder?

Bit also used a powerful magic spell to overwhelm a raving patient in need of soothing, which proved very counterproductive when the spell didn't wear off gently. I don't think that was madness, though, just extraordinarily poor judgement. I'm having a hard time making sense of Bit, to be honest. Even her bird seems exasperated with her at times. Mrriaál says it's because Bit's on the speck drum. I don't know what that means, but Mrriaál seems sympathetic about it, so I guess it can't be a big deal.

As for the bad news? Let's start with the fact that I was overwhelmed by a swarm of rats and bitten to within an inch of my life. The horror of our situation was bad enough before I suffered grievous bodily harm; now that I know first-hand just how vulnerable I am, it is that much worse. Yet we must continue on our sortie, and no doubt face more merciless violence. Whatever I did in my past few years, it clearly didn't include much battle hardening.

What is perhaps worse: I also dealt my share of merciless violence, and in a manner so honorless it would make any Paladin blush and blanch at the same time. I cut down a ratling with my sword while it was stunned by Bit's magic. Even so, it took me two strokes. I doubt I would have been its match, had it had its senses. Cutting down centipedes is one thing, but this was clearly a sort of person, even if monstrous in appearance. It certainly did attack us with deadly force earlier, so I suppose it can be construed as self-defense, but still. I murdered a helpless person, and don't feel all that bad about it.

Earlier, when Mrriaál slit that false orderly's throat, I was going to stop her. The results proved her choice correct, but still I feel worse about that death than about the ratling's. Is a human face the only thing that separates my compassion from cold blood? What does that say about me?

Mrriaál said that since I don't remember my past sins, my current self is innocent of them. I'm not sure that's how it works. I am continuous with my former self; who is to say that I would make any different choices, were I in the same situations again? Will all the guilt and corruption that my past may hold crash down on me when I regain my memory?

The bloody rain outside the asylum marked my arms with stains that won't wash off. I am afraid that's also what my soul may look like.

As for my possible religious allegiance: Winter didn't recognize the symbol on my amulet, and it certainly doesn't match any of the holy symbols on display in the chapel. On the other hand, Bit stared at it a while ago, blatantly lied about her conclusions, and then rushed off. She won't tell me more. The dread is killing me.

I suppose I should end this on a positive note. Alright then: Winter is really hot. Eyes of two different colors, chiseled face, black leathers, really pulling off that badass inquisitor look. Perhaps a bit on the thin side, but hey, who am I to judge? It's not like I have a chance with her — she must think me a mere boy — but somehow I find my attraction oddly reassuring. Our situation can't be that bad if my mind still has room for this sort of thing.

By the way, I might not remember my last few years, but I'm nonetheless very sure that I'm still a virgin. I mean, I'd have to know, right? I'd have to feel different somehow.

Well, so much for that positive note.

- Tam, an osiriani cleric (evangelist) of Horus

For the record, Tamuil "Tam" Rivers is of Varisian blood and grew up in an orphanage right here in Ustalav (the River House). However, he spend his recent formative years on an expedition in Osirion, of which he remembers absolutely nothing for the time being.

I just wanna go home. I don't belong here. Nobody does. This is not a place for people.

The dream was bad enough, but I've had nightmares before. Waking up was worse. For one thing, the bandage-faced giant in the dream cried for help all the while he was pursuing me. Could be he was a victim of the situation just like I was. And at least it was over quickly.

I wish the asylum were a dream too, but we've been here for a while now and it's not going away. I suppose this is where I really am.

So many things don't add up. I must have lost several years. Last thing I remember, I was still living at the River House, earning a modest coin with my penmanship. Now apparently I own a suit of armor? And a sword?! I have a sword. Let that sink in for a moment. I didn't pick up the brawn or the courage to go with it, unfortunately. I've mostly hidden behind my shield and flailed around with the blade so far. Good thing Mrriaál knows how to fight.

What is even stranger: Everytime we fight, I keep having bouts of... some kind of possession? Another man's words pour out of me, fell words that have no meaning to me but that boil with an ominous power that touches those around me. My fellow survivors don't seem to mind. Is someone — something? — using me as a conduit into the world? Am I some demon's hapless pawn? Or did I even willingly sell my soul to a dark power my past life? Either way, I dread the answer.

Sometimes, these words conjure an eldritch glow from my palms, red like a sunset and laced with black tendrils, and it appears to heal wounds. The others seem convinced that this is some kind of priestly magic that I work, but surely that's preposterous. I don't know the first thing about magic, and only enough about gods to mumble a prayer to Desna or Pharasma when the need arises. Wouldn't I at least have to know which god I serve? And even if it were true — what if it turns out I serve an archdevil, or some unspeakable horror from beyond the veil? My sword is rather wicked-looking, almost like a sickle, and my amulet bears a stern-looking eye. I am afraid to ask.

Perhaps this place is so truly gods-forsaken that even the gods themselves don't know were are here. Then we are truly lost.