On Shadowlight

On the other side of the door, their vision dimmed and went red… a blood-colored red. There was something strange happening around them, as if the very stuff of reality itself had been torn and was rebelling in pain. They got a sense of being drawn, more powerful than they could resist, and suddenly they realized they were somewhere else. They could hear a din of many voices, but all they could see was that deep red.

Somewhere Else

When the red vision cleared, they were in a grey corridor somewhere on the Grand Stair. They were in circle around a woman, stained in blood, with more pooling around her. She was missing an arm and chunks of her body. There was a magical glyph drawn in steaming blood, as a well as a message, “One of us a traitor”, written in blood, and a wooden box next to her. William examined her and determined that she was dead. Mena and Sturm kept watch.

The woman was alien in nature, with three fingered hands, russet hair, and golden skin. Her body was covered with horrible, tearing, wounds. Jane determined that the wounds were not from an animal attack, and they seemd familiar, but could not recall what made them. Cyra and Jane realized that the glyph was giving off vast amounts of sorcery, some of it seeming into the ground. The woman had combined Sorcery, Wrighting, and Invocation into a single glyph. It was a final effort to summon help.

There were stylized representations of each of the team members in the form of chess-like pieces, that might have been icons, but appeared to be used up. No one recognized the woman. William found that she was clutching a representation of Baudmagus in her hand that had not been burned out. There was an open door to a Gossamer World revealing an open-air market on the other side. Mena and then Jane tried to close the door, but could not.

William examined the wooden box, which was made of dark wood. Inside were six more of the chess-like figures of Bastiano, Callius, Dale, Drake, Lucien, and Vala. The glyph suggested that one of them might be a traitor. The figures were actually icons. Since Baudemagus’ figure was not in the box, he was not believed to be the traitor, but traitor to what?

Mena examined some bracelets that the woman wore that were concealed to those who did not know Wrighting. She determined that Baudemagus had made them. They were a set of icons, but only Cyra, Mena and William could see them. Cyra recognized some of them from Morholt’s glasses, and one that he had seen before elsewhere. Mena took them.

Uther sought out psychic presences nearby. Sturm was watching. Suddenly, tears appeared in the reality of the open air market and on the Grand Stair, and black forms of unreality emerged from them. Uther shot at the nearest one. Sturm dove through the door to engage the being there. William raised his Eidolon Shield. Jane and Mena also went through the door onto a balcony. 

Cyra determined that the tear on the Grand Stair had a psychic presence that was painful to detect, but there was a much stronger one beyond the Void Gate they had emerged from. She filled the void with burning fire. The fire was sucked in and disappeared.

Sturm engaged the entity with his chainsword. When it touched the thing, bits of the chainsword disappeared into nothingness. Uther’s shots also had no effect on the thing he shot at. Jane noticed that the market went on into the distance as far as the eye could see. She also saw more of the beingscoming through the tears and destroying whatever they came in contact with. Mena strengthened the Eidolon in an attempt to close the tear. She managed to close part of the gate and realized that she needed Sturm’s Umbra to close it.

The entity on the Grand Stair slashed at Uther and destroyed part of his armor. The other attacked Sturm, but he leapt aside as the entity dove at him. Uther ran through the door onto the balcony. Cyra determined that the power beyind the Void was either keeping the portal open, or controlling the entities. She attempted the contact the power to ask it to stop. William, who was the only one still on the Grand Stair, saw her drop to the ground unconscious in convulsions, with blood spurting from her eyes and nose.

Jane descended from the balcony and noted that there were innumerable doors to the Grand Stair. They were in the Agora, the grand market world, a nexus of the Grand Stair. Most of the locals were escaping through doors and closing them behind them. William pulled Cyra through the door as one of the entities destroyed a section of the floor beneath it. Sturm used his Umbra to find the weakness in the portal and it closed with an implosion.

Uther created a medical robot to heal Cyra. William used the Eidolon to heal Cyra. Cyra stabilized. The blood and convulsions stopped. She awoke, but unable to move. Jane attempted to use the Grand Stair to claose the rift there. She realized that if she could find a door, she could clos the portal. Using Wayfinding, she found a stall selling prefab Hobbit houses and found a circular hobbit door. Mena realized what Jane was doing and assisted her. Sturm joined in to empower the Door. They needed to be in contact with the door when they put it in place.

While Sturm distracted the being, while Mena and Uther threw the door, with Jane on top of it, inot the gap. The portal imploded, and all were sucked toward it, ending up on top of Jane

The team investigated the occurrence. They retreived the body of the woman from the Grnad Stair. Some of the witnesses reported that a similar portal had occurred on the Agora and the dead woman had emerged from it bleeding. She opened the Door to the Grand Stair and fled there. A merchant of rare and esoteric magic recognized her species. She had bought and sold tomes from him in the past. Cyra asked if any of her items were available, but one were. The merchant said that the woman seemed to be interested in secrets and sold her treasures when she was done with them.

Callius emerged from one of the doors. He did not take special notice of the woman’s body among all the other dead. He asked what had happened, and Uther summarized. William told him that the dead woman had had icons of all of them. Callius said that he used Wayfinding to locate the team as soon as they disappeared. It had taken him an hour to arrive. In that time, Sturm repaired his weapon.

Mena learned that the entities were known as Erebi and that it was heretical sorcery to summon them because of their destructive nature. Jane surmsed that it was also possible for novices to summon them by mistake. Perhaps the woman had summoned them inadvertently. Mena asked if there might be a trail for them to follow. Callius said that there would be if they were summoned locally, however, summoning usually only summoned one. There were two portals from which multiple entities had emerged

Callius was stunned that something attacked the Agora. It was not a wise thing to do. Jane suggested that the attack might not have been on the Agora itself, but rather on something nearby. The portals had appeared on two sides of the door where they found the woman. Callius suggested that Lucien and Vala should be informed. He provided a shortcut to Silverlight, and then went through another door. They found a merchant who stored bodies and they arranged to make it timeless

They planned for their meeting with Vala. She would know that they had entered her domain and were yanked out. They woudl say that they were summoned by the dead woman, whose body was consumed along with part of the Grand Stair. They went through the door to Silverlight.

On Shadowlight

They were greeted on the other side by a horde of fanatic followers and immediately taken to Vala’s Chamber, where she dismissed everyone except the team. Vala surmised that the summoner must have used blood magic and their icons to summon them. William described the woman, and Vala said that she was a thief who liked to steal secrets. Vala asked what she might have been afraid of. Sturm said the Erebi were after her. William mentioned that she had had Erebi wounds when they found her. Vala noted that they had used the plural through multiple portals. Cyra added that there was a powerful presence assisting or controlling them

Vala surmised that since she could not summon Baudemagus, who she was close with, she summoned his associates. But Vala wondered why the woman had not summoned her. Uther asked where should would have gotten the icons from. Vala said that the woman had had the ability to create them herself. Valal was more concerned that the Erebi had cornered her in the Agora. Vala conjectured that the Dwimmerlaik might have been responsible, but she would need to convene an inquest. However she wanted to know why the team had been seeking her out in the first place.

Uther relayed the story of Fierce and Morholt. Vala seemed to know about the world and the various players. She concurred that the legion of warriors he would have created would have been disasterous on the Grand Stair. William mentioned that the first converts was a Dwimmerlaik, and provided the icon as proof. Vala said that the icon predated the war and was not conclusive of collusion. She mentioned how the various Gossomer Lords would react and that there would be no consensus, so that she would need proof to convince them to go to war with the Dwimmerlaik again.  

Jane mentioned that the team had pledged to speak to Vala on Baudemagus behalf. Vala replied that the team should speak to Drake themselves about the dead woman and seeking Baudemagus’ reassignment. She mentioned the dead woman had stolen Lucien’s chess set. Uther recalled that he had left a copy of the Dwimmerlaik’s diary on his uncle’s desk to pass on to Drake. Mena mentioned that they would speak to Drake on Sotosama’s behalf as well.

Vala instructed the team to see Baudemagus and return to her with him for the funeral of the dead woman. She would decide how to proceed with the inquest while they were away. She asked where the body was. William gave her the claim check for the body bank. Vala said she would arrange for passage through Nexopolis to return quicker. Finian knew her and probably would attend the funeral himself. She would send someone to retrieve the body. Then she dismissed them.

Once out of Vala’s presence, Mena questioned why the woman had taken the effort to summon them on the Grand Stair and propped the door open. The woman had used her remaining life energy to bring the team to her through the icons and left clues as to where she had come from.

Back to Ionius

Using Vala’s shortcut, they returned to Ionius, the world of Baudemagus’ exile. There was no festival going on this time. They informed Baudemagus that the artifact had been destroyed. Baudemagus was sober and was very sad to learn of the death of his wife. They informed Baudemagus of the events on the Grand Stair near the Agora. Mena gave him the bracelets. Baudemagus said that she had summoned the team because they were the only ones that he trusted.

Baudemagus stated that, if they assume that there was a traitor, and the Dwimmerlaik were involved, the inquest would cause the Lords of Gossomer would be exposed.  
He prefered that the traitor be Callius, but that was unlikely.  

Bastiano was easy to paint as a villain, primarily because of the use of Umbra, but he was righteous about the Gossomer Lords.  

Dale was gone for centuries at a time. Who knew what she encountered on those journeys. It would difficult to think that she did not know of a return of the Dwimmerlaik. But she was not territorial or politically motivated. She was difficult to paint as a villain, but it was not impossible.

It was not conceivable to Baudemagus that Drake could be a vilain. Mena wondered if Drake knew more than he was telling.

Lucien was more scholar than conqueror, and it would be anathema for him to collude with the utter devastation espoused by the Dwimmerlaik. If he were the one, they would be completely unaware, and they could find themselves fighting the Grand Stair itself.

Baudemagus said that if Vala were the villain, the battle was already lost.

Baudemagus said that there should be an inquest, and that the team should undertake it. The team knew that their task would be to find and capture a Dwimerlaik for interrogation. Jane belived that the one on Fierce had been a scout or spy.  

Baudemagus posed that the Dwimmerlaik might not be true Dwimmerlaik, or shadows from a specific world, or just a handful of survivors from the war. There were many Dwimmerlaik who were unaware that the war had ended.  

Then there was the matter of convincing the Gossamer Lords that the Dwimmerlaik were back without revealing that there was a traitor.

Baudemagus suggested that there was a way to speak with his wife using a ritual known as the Last Walk, last used to end the war with the Dwimmerlaik, and required the essence of a Gossamer Lord gifted with Eidolon. It could be performed as part of the funeral.

The Team:

  • Sturm von Krieg the warrior (Joab)
  • William Edwalton the scientist (Greg)
  • Jane Edwalton the explorer (Jenna)
  • Mena the traveler (Stephanie)
  • Uther the gatherer (Dave)
  • Cyra the sorceress (Mike)