Session 008 - 11.15.25

Recap

There is a meeting in a few days.

Riverboat tonight.

Session

Chapter 1 - Darkwood Temples

We have some time to kill, 4-5 hours, before the boat goes out to the river.

The boat doesn't have typical wheels, for a river boat, it has giant hooks that pull the boat forward because the water is sludgy and gross.

Theo gets interested in the temples. The party heads up to the temples.

The bottom of the hill is fenced off, with iron-gothic fencing. The hill comes to an unnerving peek, like a Dr. Suess style of two building pressed together on top of a cliff. A monolith type protrusion representing the Shadow Temple entrance. A windy path moves off behind it, towards the other temples.

A graveyard is under the temples, hangs over the backside of the hill.

There is a large archway, open for entry. Never been time a it has been closed that Lazlo can recall.

It's not steep, but long and winds up the hill. We enter. We get a closer look at the buildings, there is one that is almost looks like a wooden ski lodge, but less modern. Hanging out front is a root branch holding a bulb lantern with glowing white, wispy orbs inside. Like a porch light. There is a banner hanging on the post, that looks like the roots of a tree going into the ground, as a symbol. Temple of Earth.

The opposite way, very gothic looking cathedral. Like a knock off Notre Dame building. Candles, ever-y-where. Everything is drippy and waxy. Hanging on two big banners are two torches, crossed. Church of Light.

Lazlo mentions he never really went to church, they used to play in the graveyard.

Halfway up the path, there is almost a cut out into the side of the hill. Not paved, very rough, unmanaged. Like it was cut once and not many people traverse this path. Stone obelisk protrusion, with a purple flickery orb of lightening. The Cult of Shadows. Not necessarily evil, but maybe a little bit more grey in morality. They have no qualms dissecting a body before burying it. A little weird.

Sasha and Theo decide to visit the Cult of Shadows. We make our way around this natural pathway. We come to the obelisk. We get about 15' away, the orb pulses and surges with energy. An arc of lightening strikes the ground and reveals a staircase. Theo leads the group down, Lazlo stops to see if anyone is around but doesn't seem anything.

The vibe makes us feel eery. Makes us a little uncomfortable.

Cult of Shadow

Down the staircase, play blue flamed sconces, we see about many 20 steps down before it flattens down into a floor. Theo can just barely see a door down there. Sasha goes first to check it out. There is a placard above the door Cult of Shadow, Business Operations, day and night. Come inside and make an appointment.

Sasha enters, a little bell dings. It's like the sketchiest looking funeral parlor, we've ever been in. Ghosts and shadows and things barely even alive. We see a weirdly blue and white lit room. Sitting in this reception area, at the end of the room, is a tall desk. Gently bobbing up and down is a ghost man. Humanoid, dark hair, he is transparent.

Sasha approaches. Lazlo asserts himself and bypasses the need for an appointment. The man floats through the wall. A few moments later, through a side door, is a skeleton. A little more decorated than Martok; tailored grey and long comfortable suit. He has a pair of glasses, with no eyes behind them. A mustache that is on the bone. He greets Lazlo.

His family has been coming to Cult of Shadow for a long time. As it turns out, his family uses their services frequently: Turning them into ghosts of some sort.

New families have moved in. Lazlo asks questions about it.

Evidently, it has been reported that people aren't dying in other places, other than this city.

Temple of Light still holds mass. We realize the Cult of Shadow is more or less a funeral parlor and we take leave. We head to the Temple of Earth.

Temple of Earth

We pass through a beaded door and inside is a bunch of plants and cats and birds and it's like we walked inside a Rainforest Cafe. It's warm, humid, but more comfortable in here. It's very alive but calm. We look around and out of the bushes comes a skeleton, but looks to be a woman. She has big, curly black hair. Painted like a candy skull. She is wearing overalls and carrying gardening supplies.

Not so much a temple anymore. "A group of people who love plants and animals." They've been bringing wildlife back to life, but they are still a little bit weird. A raccoon wanders out of the foliage, but it's like pet cemetery. It's patchy and bony, a small, young raccoon.

She becomes very interested in Shamoiah. She wants to inspect him. She takes off his gloves and casts some magic at him. Her magic is almost a pearlescent greeny-blue as it extends out of her fingers. Not even a minute goes by, the magic being channeled into him. It's almost like a tickle, but Shamoiah has never been tickled so it's interesting. It ends "Well, aren't you an interesting creature, do you know what you are?"

Shamoiah doesn't know what he is. He remembers being a tree or a bush, but there is a soul attached to him now! Maybe someone died nearby or on the tree and it absorbed the soul. Over a hundred years ago.

Shamoiah drops the bomb of his vision of the cult guy with a hatchet, who looks like the guy who blew up the city.

Shamoiah thinks really hard of his earliest memories. It feels like, he remembers one day there was sunlight and warmth. Then he felt something cold, but it was a small localized coldness. Then it slowly filled up with warm and then something felt weird. Felt wrong. Then he remembers moving. Being able to angle himself to the sunlight. Being able to get out cold breezes by moving. Then it got really cold, so he moved toward warmth. And then he found sounds and noises and he remembers hearing words, understanding what these sounds, he'd heard before and not understood, were. He started to gain consciousness but he can't remember anything before that, other than sometimes it's warm, sometimes it's cold. He just remembers being a plant that wasn't just a plant anymore.

Shamoiah asks about my hand, she attempts to cast magic on it. It has some magical properties about it, but she can't tell anything else about it.

We leave and head to the Temple of Light.

Temple of Light

Shamoiah stays outside. Gothic-cathedral buildings, every space is covered in melted wax from candles. A warm and orange glow about this building. Inside, there are a bunch of bookshelves and scrolls and just archives of religious documentation, caked in a bunch of wax. Hanging in the center is a long and large chandelier full of wax and candles. A little while goes by and a dark brown and white robed humanoid figure begins to approach from the far end of the room. His head is covered in wax and he has a large candle on his head. A clerical visor covers his eyes to prevent the wax from getting in his face, otherwise it drips down his shoulders, his robes, etc. His vestments have torches and candles. He is a ghoul.

Right away Sasha asks about my hand when the ghoul greets us. He goes to retrieve the preacher.

We investigate while left along. Lazlo finds a book that has been freed from all the wax. He pulls it out. A book to guide to meditate to put yourself in the "inbetween", force your consciousness to look into places in the ethereal plane. TO see ghosts and spirits.
He gets the feeling with this book: You could potentially strengthen yourself to learn how to do more than what is just in this book. He needs to spend time reading and researching, but this is a guide to ask for or look into the beyond.

Theo being his curious self, he looks for places that look the most undisturbed. What is behind the giant waterfalls of this wax? He finds, storybooks of old divine being called Paylor. He was the god of the sun and of light, many, many, many years ago. A story that showed the Sun after a long battle with some creature that was trying to devour the light, he banded together with The Goddess of the Moon to defeat the shadow and they fell in love. They had twin girls to watch over the sun and the moon eternally.

BUT ALSO, Theo finds next to a shelf over, a book of a god, who was able to lie his way into godhood. By being so deceptive, he made everybody believe and through worship and outside energy sources, he was able to ascend to godhood. He was referred to as Spade. As I'm reading this story, Theo's human hand begins to itch. It is a coincidences or a nerve ending, he can't be sure.

Theo asks the others about Spade, while he pockets the book covertly. Lazlo has heard of Dispader, and he is not a good guy: A liar, a cheat, a murder. Theo has no reaction in the hand to Dispader.

There is one candle that sticks out, on the altar. It is ivory white, thick, roughly the size of a big water bottle. The candle is lit but the flame is black.

Lazlo casts Dispel Magic on the black flame and every candle goes out. A cold breeze blows. From the bowels of the Cathedral, we hear screams and sounds of disappearing. As if everyone is being taken.

The doorway opens, we see a large figure, wearing a very priestly robe and on his shoulders are massive candles. On his head is a massive candles. He even has a staff with a candle on top of it. "What DID YOU DO?"

He lights the black flame and all the candles light. He explains the black flame can only be put out with dispel magic.

Lazlo tries to lie to him. It seems to succeed. He tells us it must never go out and he lost six acolytes. Something has happened over the past couple of years, during one of their ceremonies. Normal candles blew out, that came from inside the building, the doors were closed. We notice he is an ogre, missing an arm. He looks like a goliath, more than an ogre. Maybe a half ogre or it wasn't a choice.

A couple acolytes have gone missing. These people going missing, don't come back to life. They have completely gone missing. Something is taking them into the shadow. He is unsure what or why. Some parts of this temple, no matter how many candles, there is still a shadow.

He is Light Preacher Trogg. We introduce ourselves.

There is a large monastery on the far side of Eastaval. Up on the waterfalls.

Light Preacher Trogg has attempted to speak with Cult of Shadow, to no avail.

Sasha asks about my hand. He checks out Theo's hand, dripping wax on him. He says it is a powerful item, hrm hand, that belonged to a Demi-god. He was a bit unaligned, but he never did anything truly malevolent. The gods name is Spade. Some call him Ace. He is the god of tricks and gambling and twisting of fate. He could do a lot of things. Apparently he lied his way into goodhood.

Theo hears a voice "It's been a long time, but I don't know. Kinda tired. Don't really want to do much more."

Light Temple in Eastaval, Beaconkeep Oog. They are a giant. They are like the pope of Church of Light. If they mention Light Preacher Trogg sent us, we will be invited in.

We leave.

The Graveyard

Sasha notices someone walking through the graveyard. A blueish colored woman. She disappears.

Lazlo mentions he noticed a woman similar to that back at the Harvest Festival in the Capital City.

We share with Shamoiah about Light Preacher Trogg and he tells us how One is at the waterfall.

We get into the graveyard: It is massive. It is layered. There are graves on top of graves. We see some lingering ghosts in the distance, chatting with each other. Lazlo calls off names of his family on the graves and we see some of them are thousands of years old.

Shamoiah and Sasha notice a solid figure, standing at a gravesite, who looks vaguely familiar. He is in a tunic and a coat. He seems to be crouched down in front of a grave. They recognize him to be Torric.

Shamoiah engages. He is standing at a grave with the name Angeline. It is a recent death, in about the past 10 years. "An old flame".

She did not die in Darkwood. Torric's father is getting worse, very ill. Their magics cannot fix him. Seems to be a curse, more than an illness.

Torric is meeting Mr. Shade to learn more about the darkness and shadows cursing the Temple of Light.

Fortune-Telling!

There are shops in Darkwood: More mechanical. Weapons, etc. But there is a machinist that makes small robot creatures, more protype than functional.

There are fortune tellers and clairvoyants. We can get readings. Lazlo is looking for someone specific and asks arounds. He finds out she left town about a month ago. She's on her way to do fortunes in Elven city. She has never been, it's a bucket list items. He explains to us who she is.

Other fortune readers:
Cooky old lady. Sometimes it comes true, but she could just be crazy.
Younger, newer; beautiful woman.

We head to the cooky old lady. An old and tattered, patched up tent. On the front a tapestry indicating readings: 1g - Future readings, 2g - Past readings, 5g - love readings.

Old Crone

Lazlo wants Shamoiah to have a love reading. So we head into the tent. Inside we see a small circular table with a couple chairs around it. In the middle is a pedestal that would hold an orb shape. Tucked away in the back of the tent, sitting at a desk, we see a poofy, white haired figure. Sparkly purple "track suit". Epitome of old lady track suit, but purple and rhinestoned. She is sitting there but notices us.

We engage. Shenanigans. Shamoiah attempts to get a reading. He thinks about the robed guy and touches her crystal ball. It swirls with mist and we see a familiar forest we went through to get here. It is by we all originally stumbled across Shamoiah. It zooms down into a small clearing. 4 tree stumps, a man, in the distance on the edge of this vision, we see other cloaked figures. They are carrying chopped wood. He is reading a book with weird symbols and shapes.

We hear him whispering words, in a language we cannot understand. He is chanting. It goes on a few moments and the mists swirl and the image is gone.

Shamoiah thinks of One as he's touching the orb. Clouds mist and swirl. Another part of the forest, then across the lake, then up a waterfall and we see One. He looks like he has made himself a log cabin by the mountain side. He gardening. His outfit is different. He is wearing a dark brown set of robes. Around his neck is priest like vestments. They are for the Temple of Light.

Shamoiah thinks of the girl we save. The visual pans for a long time, then fades into a futuristic metrolpolis. Large archways, large glass majesty designs. We see flying train cars flying from place to place. We zoom in closer through a window in a large building. A girl sitting at a desk with other kids their age. Study of graviturgie. We understand through basic knowledge it is the magic of gravity. Manipulation of the force that holds us to the ground.

Shamoiah thinks of The Duchess. Clouds swirl. The clouds darken. We see the castle come into view. It zooms in through the roof and down, deep below. Beneath in the catacombs below. The Duchess and the Duke, standing over a table with an elderly man tied to the table. They are draining and replacing his blood with some sort of machine. She is channeling this green energy into his body. The man in unconscious. The Duke we hear, "How long is this going to take?", she responds, "Relax darling, this one is almost done. I think I have discovered a way to replace blood with something synthetic. Ones that I have manipulated and made my own."

"You are saying I will have an unlimited supply?"

"It will only take some persuasion until they come."

She steps closer to the man and places her hand above his head. He is familiar to us, as we've seen him in the streets. We know this man is from Ishka. During this, The Duke steps around the side of the table, to the new bags of blood are being made. He looks almost like he is looking at us. "Within a matter of a month, everybody in Ishka shall be under our, control is a bad word, but under our persuasion." He grins and the image fades.

Theo gives her another platinum and we convince her to take a break after seeing what she's seen in the crystal ball.

As we walk out, the sign now says, "Closed."

We explain to Shamoiah that he shouldn't tell every single person everything about him.

Mystic

We attempt to go to the other fortune teller. But we are running out of time, so we need to make it quick. We find a newer tent, backed up to an RV style machine, like we have, just different design. Just above the opening to this tent, that is tied open, there is a permanent structured sign, painted above the door. "Mystic."

Nothing looks amiss around us, to Lazlo. He approaches someone at the restaurant right next door and askes someone if they want to make some coin. He pays someone off to go to the Riverboat and tell them not to leave without us. He sends him with 5 platinum.

We head into the tent. It's a little bigger on the inside. Inside we see starlights dancing around the ceiling, illuminating the tent. A circular table with stools to sit at. In the center of the table is a well of water. A ways back in the tent, we hear the sounds of chopping, like someone is cooking in the back. Floating gently across the tent's airspace, we see a ghostly, but not in the sense of being dead, more spectral: a cat with wings. It lands on a perch and watches us.

Stepping into view, we see a dark, tanned skinned woman. She is very amazonian. Tall, big, wide. She looks powerful. She has massive, poofy, black hair, tied back with a bandana. She has a comfortable, blueish, silk dress/robe on. She takes the pot off the flame, removes her apron and comes out to us. She's about as tall as Shamoiah. Her eyes are constellations; starlight. She does not blink.

She swirls her finger in the pool and it swirls into the night sky.

Theo

Theo goes first. He asks about the hand again. The image swirls and ripples. It portrays a very old time on this planet. We recognize some landmarks. The vision swirls down onto this long path, between cities. We see a man walking, comfortable but cocky. Flipping a coin, hand in his pocket. Walking along. The hand that is flipping the coin is the same hand has Theo has on his body. The nerves make his body shudders and the image shudders. It show the man at a card table, holding a terrible hand. He wipes his nose, fold his hand, adjusts himself, opens his hand and it's all Aces. The image flickers again. It shows the man having conversations with some burly and dark looking figures, they walk off and come back all gut up and bloody. They had him a bag of money. We are seeing the comeupance of the man's hand. After many visions of him gaining a following, this power, his riches and treasure, all lies and deceits, we see the pinnacle where his ascension would be complete, some shadow enters behind and cuts the hand that gave him the ability to twist fate. We all kind of see as Mystic (the mystic), sits back a bit.

She can tell Theo is nearing the path where he will need to make a dedicated choice. Most of us who are selected by fate to progress with powers beyond common folk. At some point we have to make a hefty decision on what we will focus on. The choices you make on the path you walk, will help align that choice. The items you acquire assist in that choice.

She informs Theo she thinks he can control the hand and it will not hurt them. Artifacts and items never go away unless they are destroyed. Theo wasn't the first person to have had the hand. And he probably won't be the last.

Shamoiah

Shamoiah is curious about his nature and Willow. Will he have saplings? He touches the water. We see a familiar place, that we saw about an hour ago. It is the past, fully of trees and plants. A group of lumberjacks coming through, but they aren't wearing robes. They are chopping some trees down and one leans up against what will be Shamoiah. He sits down and pulls out a hunk of bread and some cheese and begins to eat. A moment passes, as he eats his lunch, and eventually nods off against the tree. A hooded figure steps into view with a long knife. He slices into the mans throat and into the tree. He then walks off. The vision adjusts and we see the lumberjacks be murdered by the cultists. All the bodies were gathered and a ritual was performed. These winged creatures claw themselves from below, took 2 cultists into the skies. One was completely ripped apart as they flew off into the darkness. The surviving cultist, in panic, buried all the bodies and rituals in that location. Then it fades decades into the future. In that spot, it overgrows and the vision from above the tree, goes from the tree as consciousness is born.

The vision adjust to a large tree, just a tree. Nothing happens. Shamoiah won't be having saplings with Willow. "Your future is clouded."

Lazlo

Lazlo is working to become clairvoyant. Mystic offers to assist him in his journey. He shows her a book. Mystic's mother wrote it. Mother's name is Oracle.

He explains his connection with the dead. The go back and forth and Lazlo puts his hand in the water. The image does not portray him, but his ancestors. Throughout the time his bloodline has existed his family has always been a bit in touch with ghosts/spirits/ethereal. At some point, they had found something in the in-between that they conversed with. Something that was always there, that was born there. They had forged a contract with, making it possible for them to travel to the ethereal plane. That's where he got his abilities. That grants him the ability to communicate and venture to places where others can't, because he can move in between. His ancestors are show doing ghost hunts, they persuade the ghosts for easier responses. Lazlo gets the idea his path in life was always destined to be this.

Lazlo asks if there is a way he can amp up his powers and she tells him to finish reading the book.

Sasha

Sasha refuses a reading. But we talk her into it. The swirls fade and it turns into darkness. A pin prick of light appears, a faint star in the night sky. It slowly gets bigger and bigger and fills the pool with a glowing white light. There is nothing but this light. Appearing in the distance, fading into view, is miasma fog. Like a gas being released. PInky-purple space. As it swirls, we see a small little girl, sitting alone, brushing a dolls hair. The cloudiness fades into a normal child's bedroom, of her sitting on the floor. The closet in her room creeps open and we see long fingertips curl out the door, opening it from the inside. A face in the darkness: A reflection of the moonlight in the eyes and we see a wet glisten from the smile, "Would you like to play?"

"Mommy says you aren't real."

"We've played before, how could we play if I wasn't real?" The door opens all the way. We see a face in the darkness, a bit bigger than a normal face. Featureless, but it is hard to see. There's a flash of lightening outside. The little girl screams and hides on her bed, under the covers. The vision fast fowards. We see this large, lanky creature, atop the bed. Long arms, long legs, bald dark complexion. Creepy, looming creature. The door bursts open. A man with a candle and a sword, the closet door slams closed and the creature is gone.

"What is it?"

"The monster chased me into the bed again!"

"How many times do I have to tell you there is no monster. It's not real." He opens the closet and he shows her. He turns to tell her again and a hand reaches from in the closet and yanks him into. The vision fades.

Sasha asks if she will see The Dreamer again. Mystic tells her, probably.

Mystic tells us, she has seen Sasha's father in someone else's vision. A woman with ghoulish skin came to have her fortune told. She witnessed this man with a lot of other people, stuck in this place. He didn't seem like he was suffering. Just trapped.

It was in the woman's future, like she was going to be there herself. It freaked her out and she left.

"You are all about to make a choice. My practices have allowed me some foresight. If anyone of you struggle with your decisions, just know that every choice you make, whether is be with heavy consequence, is always the correct choice. Everything is predetermined, whether you know it or not. There are select few that walk among us that have the ability to adjust what is predetermined. I will be keeping a close eye on all of you."

Next Time

We depart and head to the Riverboat.