Session Start: Sat Jul 11 17:18:31 2009 Session Ident: #castlevania * Logging #castlevania to 'logs\090711.Sandwich.Net.txt' [The party is standing in a narrow cave in the dark listening as the voice from the outer chamber begins its tale.] Voice: "As I said, in the beginning there was nothing. For want of something, there became difference. How do you get something from nothing, you may ask. Well, nothing is what you get when you have everything everywhere everywhen. It cancels. Like most good things, it could not keep and difference appeared. Then, there was this and that, now and then, here and there. I think you get..." Voice: "...the idea. Time passes and the worlds become complex. Primordials give way to planetars and planetars give way to mortals. Everything becomes more diverse and divisive on smaller and smaller levels." * Nyyx listens without comment. Whoa. Deep. O...kay Voice: "You come close to the present day. Nothing really has changed. The rules at the start are the rules now, but the domains appear different. Now, when I say close to the present day, I mean within an eon or two on either side." * Olivia doesn't look quite so confused as some of the others as she listens. Voice: "At this point, the gods as you know then exist and control individual prime material planes. You call these planets. Yes, there are other planets with life and gods and everything else. In addition to each of these primes are the inner and outer planes as you know them. The Hells, the Abyss, the Heavens, the Clockwork Nirvana, the elemental planes and so on. Each is connected to..." Voice: "...each prime in turn. In reality, each of the primes share a multitude of prime material planes, but they are so distant from one another to make the point academic to almost all beings." * Nyyx jots down notes in her journal. * Charlotte just continues to look confused. She'll assume this stuff is important, though. Voice: "In any event, the gods fight for ideological control over the primes and expanses of the inner and outer planes. Their conflict is bounded however. There are spaces beyond this cosmology where existance is closer to how it was before the difference. Where a multitude of possibilities and times exist together. Where the rules come apart at the seams. This is the Far Realm." Voice: "Your planes evolved from this and when their anchors break, it is where they will return. Long ago, a deity entered the Far Realm and pulled this prime from the manifold chaos of the Far Realm. Whether or not there are other planets with other life on them in this prime, I do not know. However, when this prime was called forth, the deity selected it from the endless possible verses..." Voice: "...and tied it to the inner and outer planes and herself. In that fashion, this prime became a proper realm in the common reality and the deity became a supreme authority here." * Olivia starts. "Her? You mean the... Nameless God?" Voice: "Of course, this supreme authority did not apply when the deity traveled to alternate primes. She was destroyed on an alternate prime six hundred years back. Without its anchor, this prime is falling into the its old place in the Far Realm. As it falls, its links to the inner and outer planes have failed and even the laws of existence grow tired. The dead rise, the vestiges gain..." Voice: "...strength, impossible magic appears." Wait... how does a god die? Voice: "The Nameless God? Perhaps. The effect that killed her pulled her from the universe. So, nameless... makes sense. We were new when she was slain. She died minutes after The Peraclypse was formed and we could not learn its name. The Incarnadine - One Card - knows her name." Voice: "We continue closer to the present. Over the last six centuries, this world has suffered from the lack of an anchor and a void where the den realm of its god should be. Gregor the Red as you call him - the title is no longer fitting - has been trying to install himself in that void to reanchor the world." Voice: "His efforts have affected the process, speeding it up. What should have taken a generation will instead occur in no more than another year or two." Voice: "So now, your world will die and when it does, my form will collapse and I will rejoin The Peraclyse beyond the planes." Voice: "In the mean time, the Gregor thing waits beyond the veil in the dead god's den realm hoping to become strong enough to stop it in time." Voice: "This plane hold many of the followers of One Card trapped here, so we will wait to watch them die." Voice: "While Gregor holds such an empty throne, the Solitaire Amarette walks the world trying to reverse its master's fate." * Olivia frowns as she listens, before murmuring, "Paraclypse... that I am not familiar with. But you put a lot of weight on the Incandine." Voice: "This is where the world stands and it will fall to chaos as we watch. My story is complete." * Adam goes all glassy-eyed for a moment and recites, "Peraclypse: A dark, bloody desert god who fell out of favor some time ago. Provided boons in exchange for sacrifices." * Adam shakes his head a bit and snaps out of it. Voice: "A reasonable if reductionist sketch." * Olivia half-smiles. "Well, if you care to elucidate." Voice: "I am but a part of The Peraclypse. I could not do it proper justice. It is the holy balance of life with death with all the purpose and fickle tendency of a hurricane. To serve it is to know the true safety of a sealed and torturous fate. To deny it is to tempt an eternity of unceasing attention." That's an awful lot of words to say "dark and bloody" Voice: "I suppose that is true. I had hoped to say more however. The Peraclypse is 'dark and bloody' certainly. It is also not to be crossed under threat of ministrations so dire you'll think they are a religion." * Olivia frowns to herself as she puts her fingers to her temple. She glances back a moment, then back forward. "We will need to have a talk about that." * Nyyx writes furiously and sets down her pen after a moment. Voice: "Are you finished with your questions?" * Olivia frowns and says, "So why has the void of the dead god filled with the shadow realm itself?" Voice: "It always was the shadow realm. That is just its current form. The Gregor thing as permuted it as he whims and now it is a place of conjured things." * Nyyx frowns as she jots this down in her notes. Who is this One Card that you serve? Figure in Red: "Now you've done it." * Nyyx eyes the figure in red sharply. Voice: "I SERVE NO SUCH THING! I AM A PART OF THE PERACLYPSE AND WHEN THAT WRETCHED ONE CARD IS GONE AND TWISTING IN THE VOID UNBIDDEN WE WILL STILL RULE THE BOUNDARIES!" Whoa, sore spot. * Nyyx blinks slowly. "My mistake. Who is One Card?" Voice: "One Card is a murderer. It is the source of all your pain and folly. It slew the goddess. It killed us. It's killed you. And yet its children love it." Hm. Why is that? Voice: "Because they are its children." * Olivia frowns a touch. "A loyalty I will never quite understand." * Nyyx tilts her head and says nothing else. * Nyyx tucks away her journal and pen. Okay, so we've got a huge void where a god is supposed to be, and some crazy jerk trying to fill it. And we have you two just sort of sitting around doing nothing about it. * Olivia smiles slightly at Adam's summary of the facts, then glances to the one in Red. "Well, I doubt he would want to, unless this fate is an accident." oh, and let's not forget all the other gods sitting around not bothering to do anything about it, either. Figure in Red: "Why would they want to do anything about it? Filling that void puts them at risk. What if they fail? What if they are subverted? Only a creature like Gregor with much to gain would risk itself on a dying world." Figure in Red: "Beyond that, who says that we are not doing anything? You would take that thing's words for truth with nothing more?" I think he was including the shadowy storyteller in that comparison. Figure in Red: "I doubt the Peraclypse would reverse its fate as much as it abhors it." What about you? Figure in Red: "I have no existence beyond service to One Card. I have no fate to abhor. Although I suspect that One Card would atone for its crime." * Olivia looks over nonexistant glasses at the Figure in Red. "Would, not will?" * Nyyx listens silently, having nothing left to add. Figure in Red: "Would if it can. Will, I am uncertain of the future." * Olivia half-smiles. "You'd think a god wishing to make up for what it's done could be a bit more certain about it." Figure in Red: "One Card is not a god." Neither is Gregor. Uh, I think. I heard he got killed by a cat. Little one. Itty bitty. * Nyyx smiles in the darkness. Hah Good times * Olivia glances over at him with a faint smile. "News travels quite fast to your ears." * Adam buffs his nails. "I try." Voice: "Gregor did die, but the Gregor thing is still active. Such a parasite is rarely easy to remove." How -would- you remove such a parasite? Voice: "Go to his realm and destroy the Gregor thing." Voice: "But I would not destroy him. No purpose in it." * Olivia frowns slightly. "Doesn't it seem likely that he would get in the way of any... useful attempts to stabilize the plane?" I mean, he doesn't want us to do that * Olivia continues to muse, at the Voice, "If that were to, say, be our goal, then we would have little choice." Voice: "Indeed." Voice: "Again, there is little purpose. In any event, have I answered all of your questions?" Not really. Like, how do we go about filling that void? Voice: "With the matter of any god's den realm, the force and substance of the dead." * Olivia mms, and says, "As he has been trying." * Olivia then says, "The dead alone? It seems fairly limiting." Voice: "Only if one will not kill." * Olivia shakes her head. "More the sheer mass and indiscriminateness of it. Which would not bother you, but could be quite a waste." Indiscriminate killing isn't acceptable. Right? Right. * Nyyx nods. [The Voice titters slightly.] * Nyyx straightens up from her crouch, her sword still in her hand. "Well, thanks for the chat." Umm... yeah. That was real informative Where we gonna go now? Voice: "Then my service to each of you is complete. You have each made a request of me, fulfilled in full. My placation is due." Placation? I don't remember agreeing to any such thing. The information was freely offered. What? [From the darkness at the end of the cavern, the party can hear a bulky mass strike the stone floor hard and split with a wet smacking sound. Out of the shadows, a dozen or more limbs of solid darkness, segmented and dozen feet or more long, sprout from the end of the hall and click along the stone walls of the cavern.] Voice: "You made a request. Each of you. A formal request of an agent of The Paraclypse. I will be repaid." What with? * Olivia frowns at it all, dagger appearing in hand. Figure in Red: "The Peraclypse is paid in one way only: life." Ah. No deal. Not ours, I hope. [As the limbs work towards the party, the center of the shadows is pulled forward as well. Depending from this blot is a cord of tenebrous tissue at the end of which hovers the split head of a goat, shadowy and slick at the same time. The voice comes from this.] Wow. You are one ugly mother- Voice: "I'm really very sorry. It cannot be helped." I got two words for you, mister severed split goat head. * Adam flips over the top card of his deck. Time Stop. * Adam activates the card and the world stutters, and less than an instant later, where there was an advancing abomination, there is now a featureless stone wall with the words "DO NOT OPEN" embossed on it in big, friendly letters. ...whoa. * Nyyx stops in mid charge and stares. Huh. Weird. What'd you do? Dunno. But, uh... I don't know if that'll hold it, either. So maybe we oughta run. * Olivia glances to Adam with widened eyes, and then says, "Yes." A pause, then, "Yes we should move." * Nyyx runs back to the dead end and looks up, toward the source of the airflow. Sounds good to me! * Charlotte looks for a way out [Scritching can be heard on the other side of the wall.] Voice: "Oathbreakers! You are known to us!" Figure in Red: "Clever. I was hoping that you would kill it, but frustrating it is not without its merit." People tell me I'm frustrating ALL THE TIME. * Adam runs! [The cavern appears to continue upward to a narrow opening in the rock about thirty feet above.] * Nyyx starts climbing, pronto. It appears being frustrating has its advantages. * Nyyx smirks. * Olivia whips out a grappling hook to aid her climbing, so she can continue! [The hole above is too narrow to pass through but there is faint light at the far end.] Ugh. We won't fit through here. Figure in Red: "Ha. Get clear of this thing and I will tell you how to reach my people." [The space on this side of the rock wall is beginning to become even *darker*.] * Olivia hangs off her rope, glancing to Nyyx, and then to Adam. "I'll head through, give you a teleport direction, and you take the rest through. Got it?" Got it. * Nyyx nods. * Olivia grins at Nyyx a moment, pulls out something in the dark from a belt pouch, and then goes up and over through the hole as a thin sheen of grease covers her body. She wriggles through like she's done this before. * Adam gapes. * Nyyx raises an eyebrow and hmms. We're gonna be okay! Olivia is a talented woman. ...very. [The darkness collalesces on the near side of the wall and rasping growls can be heard as Olivia reaches the end of the tunnel and emerges in a clutch of rocky outcrops at the western edge of the rock grouping that the party has been investigating.] * Olivia gasps a deep breath as she gets out on the other side and then runs her hand back over her greasy hair. "Whew! Damn, haven't done that for years." * Olivia then looks back through the hole and yells back, "It's clear for teleport on the other side, open straight out!" * Nyyx places a hand on Adam's shoulder. * Adam grabs ahold of Nyyx, Charlotte, and Skip, clicks his heels together, and says loudly, "There's no place like home!" And then they disappear. Whee! [The party reappears outside under the afternoon sun and surrounded by rocky outcrops. Nothing can be heard from the cavern itself. As the party materializes, they each feel a slight sense of unease and a prickling at their necks as though they touched something cold and repelent.] * Nyyx takes a deep breath as they reappear. I hope it doesn't chase us too far * Adam whistles for his sweet ride. * Olivia looks over at Nyyx with a wide grin. "Talented, mmm?" * Nyyx nods. "Very." * Olivia keeps grinning as she says, "Actually, I think I need to spend some time with you and your journal tonight. There's a few questions that being brought up in my mind." She runs her hand back through her hair again, and as she does, the grease just disappears. Ah, magical grease. "If we paid for it, we had best use it." [Without any warning, the Figure in Red appears standing on one of the outcrops and staring down at the party. Strangely, his presence does not stop the sunlight above from shinning through.] * Nyyx nods again. "Of course." Figure in Red: "That was... unanticipated..., but skillful." * Nyyx glances over at the figure in red and turns to face it. Credit to Olivia and Adam. Figure in Red: "Before you ask, the creature cannot follow you here. The particulars of its last summons keep it held in place below. This is the furthest I can go myself, in fact." * Nyyx nods. Figure in Red: "Please do not misunderstand your situation. The Peraclypse will now expect that its pact with you be paid in full. You would do well to be careful in the future." How were we supposed to know we were in a pact? * Olivia smiles fully and says, "Well, it had best hope the shadows don't claim us, then." Maybe it should hope that we don't claim -it- Figure in Red: "It's nature is not to explain the rules to you, just enforce them." * Nyyx shrugs. "It's got a strange way of defining oaths." Figure in Red: "Merely one you do not respect. You are dabbling with alien powers and must be wary." [The Figure throws back his hood at this. Its head is nothing but a large clot of bloody red feathers.] * Nyyx takes a long look at the figure. "Well. It's nice to finally see your face." Figure in Red: "My master's children are more closely aligned with your expectations. At least approaching human normal." * Olivia nods slightly and says, "Are the elves then 'yours' or 'theirs'?" Figure in Red: "The ones in the ruins here? They were our people, but they were biologically normal." Figure in Red: "If you would meet my master's children, subvert a common summoning spell with the sign on my glove." [The Figure holds his hand down low, palm down. On the glove, a sign involving an elaborately embroidered rectangle can be seen.] * Nyyx studies the symbol carefully from where she's standing. Figure in Red: "Do you have it?" * Olivia replies, "Anything we'll have to worry about?" Figure in Red: "From now on, everything. From the sign, likely little, just do it right." * Nyyx murmurs, "Doesn't sound like anything's changed." * Nyyx copies the symbol into her book, omitting a stroke or two and leaving notes for herself hinting toward the missing pieces. [The Figure vanishes in a blink.] So, where to? Away from here. * Nyyx packs away her notes. Let's find someplace safe - relatively speaking, anyway - to rest a bit and figure things out, hm? [END OF SESSION.] Session Close: Sat Jul 11 23:57:45 2009