e

• Over the course of the short rest, the room repairs itself
  • The runes return to the neutral state
  • The piles of bones do not reconstruct
• Dorian unattunes to gem, gives it to lya
  • Dorian: eating is weird right
  • Quill (mouth full): its not that weird
• Gems orbit their users, when touched they emit a chime
• Lya looks at big guy coffin
  • Bones of a mummified cat-like creature; 6 legs
  • Other stuff
    • Feather pendant token thing
    • Ring
    • Quiver
• Mariana carries the body
• Lya looks at feather pendant token thing
  • Has large feathers, not as big as peacock
  • Vaguely tree shaped (?)
  • Is magic, no attunement required, doesn't seem to be doing anything
• Aella looks at ring
  • Almost coiled, snake tail kind of a thing
  • Has magic
  • Worm-on-a-string-ing around her hand
• Meph looks at quiver
  • Empty but feels heavy, pulls out a spear
  • 3 different compartments
  • DD takes one spear
    • Head is a sharpened bone fastened to long dark wood stick; pretty simple
  • 1st compartment (large): longbow, spear
  • 2nd compartment (medium): javelin, shortsword, etc
  • 3rd compartment (small): crossbow bolts + normal arrows, darts, etc
• Guard coffin time
  • Black velvet mask, doesn’t seem magical just worth money
  • Silver thread
  • Copper chalice
  • Pair of engraved bone dice
  • Carved bone statuette of a serpent dude
  • Pale blue-green zircon
  • Spinel
  • Onyx
  • Blue spinel
• DD puts key in door (music The Core:Lava theme)
  • Meph ready action throw bomb when something aggressive looking approaches
  • Quill readies arrow when Meph throws
  • Aella readies “kill” when snake man (toll the dead)
  • Dorian readies vicious mockery when bomb
  • Lya hides in coffin
  • Maeve readies toll dead if something attacks us
• DD puts the key into the slot and the door shutters open, everyone except for Lya immediately stares into blinding light, dex save
  • Radiant damage, blinded briefly
  • Looking into the hallway through slits through hands, we see a heptagonal chamber that has an orb in the center that is emitting the light, there are also seven columns
• Aella takes a turn to blink away the blindness
• Its warm but not hot, not incandescent nor a nuclear fusion reactor
• DD wraps cloth around eyes and walks into room
• Dorian walks ahead because blindsight, goes to put lya cloak over orb
• Aella walks slowly behind dorian
• Marching order:
  • Dorian
  • DD, Aella (holding onto dorian)
  • ???
• As Dorian crosses the threshold, it feels as the light is pushing a wind pressure out of it
  • Speed upon entering the chamber is halved
    • It is halved every 5 feet further in you go
    • Dorian goes in far enough to still hopefully move back
    • Aella moves as far as possible, she misty steps to the orb and she is blasted back and scatters across the ground
• Maeve goes behind pillar, reprieve from wind
• DD goes into chamber with tower shield, which provides a larger surface area; movement speed quartered
  • They try jumping, get pushed back
• Quill enters + drops prone, force doesn't seem to lessen
• Dorian uses baton to push orb to other side, doesn’t work
  • Orb is a solid structure connected to pedestal
  • Radiant damage
• Walls are super bright, can’t make anything out
• Aella misty steps to under the orb, tries to hug wall, nat 20!
  • She barely gets a grip around the mid of the column but she loses contact with the floor
• Quill is trying to see if it is possible to shoot an arrow
  • It flies then tries to turn like it wanted to but just stops dead in the air
• New idea to use rope to pull one party member closer to the orb
• Aella fails save and slams against column
• Operation rope time
  • 150ft of rope:  2 strongest party members on far side (Gil, DD)
  • Rope tied to far side pole and wrap around Dorian
  • Dorian catapult :>
    • “Honestly, you’re making this kind of…”
    • “wHAT DO YOU MEAN ???”
    • 23 for the knots tying Dorian into the rope
  • We are tightening all of the rope as much as possible, Maeve and Gelverer have one side and Daisy Daisy and Lya have the other side
  • Everywhere there was rope on Dorian has cracked his plating and is continuing to tighten, his face plate was about to fly off
  • Bail, feather fall on everyone involved
  • DD takes 4 fire (rope burn) damage as Lya lets go to feather fall
  • Dorian takes no damage :)
  • Lya salvages 50ft rope out of Dorian
• Aella ritual casts detect magic
• Meph feels around for divots at doorway, is smooth
• DD medicine checks rope burns
• Quill imagines himself approaching the orb and touching it
  • If such a feat can be achieved, it can’t be done alone
• Aella finishes ritual casting detect magic
  • There are waves of color
  • Same magic seen in various parts of complex; raw creation. Creation burns
  • Aella turns to look at the orb
    • DM took Aella and Aster's players out of the room for talking
    • TOOK VERY LONG ?? VERY SCARY ??
  • Aella steps out from behind the column and looks at it, no time passes for anyone else, tears flow out of her eyes as she sees what she sees
    • Time stopped for Aella
  • Aella’s eyes are filled with tears and they go white, she reaches out once more towards what she thinks is the orb
    • “I will get you back my darling”-Aella
    • Aella is trying to get to the orb, after a solid few seconds of trying to push through the wind, after 5 or 10 seconds, she falls to her knees
    • Maeve pulls Aella behind a column
    • SHE IS BLIND
  • Its a bone, a fragment
    • Its beautiful according to Aella
  • Aster doesn’t know where they are but Aella saw them, their eye
    • Aella promised them that they will bring them back and protect them and that Aella will see them again
  • It pulls away at your shadow
    • Dorian is casting dancing lights
      • The lights start to take the shape of an older woman, she has dark skin and warm eyes, she is halfelven and she is beautiful and she is smiling
      • Dorian turns away because he knows shes not real, the lights place a hand on his shoulder
      • Dorian walks towards the orb, as soon as it is cast, the pressure dissipates
      • The ticking sound inside Dorian gets louder and an old recording starts playing
    • Maeve is casting light on their cloak
      • Maeve’s cloak does not work as well as Dorians but it pulls a bit still
    • Dorian reaches up
      • He places his hand on it, he feels a tiny amount of control and he wills it to fall back and to dim to softly glow, he holds it and wills it to shrink to about a softball size
      • The primary feature of the chamber are the same gem sconces throughout the building but they are dark as though the light had been shining through them
    • Crystalline sphere ringed in gold and some black metal you arent familiar with and in the center is a finger bone
• Dorian can feel the orb almost asking for a truth
  • He thinks for a long time and processes, he thinks about Aella going blind to get one last look at them and he processes, there is a sudden click and a sort of glow in his eye and anyone looking can almost understand that there has been a shift in his programing
  • We are all following
  • Dorian finds Aster’s body
    • He doesn’t say anything but something is resolved inside of him, not overcome or fixed but he has made a boundary, a line he will not cross
    • “Astraea is alive”
    • And they are alive
• Tiny pinpricks of light in the shape of stars appear all over Aster's skin, their existing freckles glow now and they are not the only ones