December 16th, 2023
Mors, Ignis 10th, 1194 (Continued) – Plane Out of Time, Day 1
[Time functions differently here. The days tracked are the sleep cycle that the PCs are using.]
We eventually settle on traveling east along the road and it leads to a busy tavern, the Tavern Out of Time. There is a wide variety of races present, including a babau, a caulborn, a debauched one, some derro, some drow, an erodaemon, a fetchling (shadow), some hobgoblins, some svirfneblin (deep gnome), a sylph (wind), some tieflings, a vayuphak (asura), and lots of goblin-ish people that look darker and more stoutly built that normal goblins. Caulborns can read and consume thoughts and have a hive mind, while erodaemons can read thoughts.
Sigmund heads to the bar while the rest of us take a table. He chats with the bartender, who is a humanoid with bronze-black skin named Stormrift; it sounds like sometimes people get caught here. While the rest of us chill, Sigmund works the room to try and learn more about where we are. He finds out that it’s eternally night here and that, while no one knows of a way out, some seem certain that there is, as people arrive and then leave. The tavern is considered neutral ground, seemingly out of respect for Stormrift. The goblin-ish people are dark goblins and they really like it here. The fetchling is eavesdropping on the conversation– Sigmund notices and approaches him when his conversation is finished. The fetchling is Nehu and he is also interested in getting back to the Prime Material. Before Sigmund leaves, Nehu slips him a note, then we head outside. The note just says, “Spark?” and Ty thinks that Nehu is hitting on him. Sigmund believes that it’s referring to our mythic spark. We then head down the road eastward.
Sigmund finds us a suitable camp. During the night we are surrounded by three kinds of boilborn. Ty recognizes one of the types as infernal boilborn, which spread disease when they hit you and also explode on death. Investigator Vale encoutered a legion (no pun intended) of festering boilborns in The Phlegmatic Wail. An oozemancer, Bloubus the Unformed, lives in the sewers beneath the metropolis of Seeras. He unleashes his boilborns on the poorest district in town in an attempt to infect the populace. Bloubus wants to enforce Nature’s will and trim the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.
Plane Out of Time, Day 2
We keep following the road eastward and it leads to a dark goblin encampment. Sigmund talks to a guard, but he won’t let us in without their leader’s, Boomspark, permission and he is not present. The guard gives us directions to a couple of caves to explore and rest in. We travel to the “rest” cave and fortify it before turning in for the night.
Plane Out of Time, Day 3
We revisit the dark goblins on the way to the other cave, but are turned away by a guard. Ralzer takes a closer took at the structure, deducing that it’s older than the tavern. We walk the structure and take a closer look at the outer walls, noticing that a worn symbol is repeated in a few spots. Sigmund tries to read it with comprehend languages, which doesn’t work and he suffers feedback similar to how the Architects protect their secrets, but nowhere near as severe. Sigmund things he may have seen this symbol before, back when the well in Delanshire had issues with the church of Neith.
We head off to the other cave and begin exploring it. The water inside is glowing strangely and we find evidence of recent mining activity, looking as if something was extracted. Ty uses Empty Soul and feels an unveiling sensation; it looks prismatic, like the room with the calendar. Sigmund uses stone shape to dig into the walls of a partially excavated area. He finds something large and metal. After a couple castings, he is able to remove it. The item is a large sphere made of a some mithral composite with a sharp point. It has an overwhelming aura, but Ralzer is able to identify it as a Temporal Anchor, which are used to attract and contain certain magical attributes in a plane. Its presence may indicate that this place was created by someone who then used these anchors to contour it to specific attributes.
We head back to the Tavern Out of Time. Sigmund ask Stormrift about Boomspark, but all we learn is that he doesn’t come from around here and is not a goblin. We have a longer talk with Nehu outside the tavern, learning that he and his companions are from Vallyn and came here through a torn portal, like the others we have encountered. Nehu can sense out sparks and he has encountered this power before. We confirm with Nehu that we do have that power and he suggests talking to Stormrift about it. Stormrift is more than he seems; Nehu thinks he may be a dragon.