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Chronicles of Mesion: Considering Hiatus; Comments Needed.
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<blockquote data-quote="LordVyreth" data-source="post: 3149572" data-attributes="member: 9626"><p><strong>Welcome To...:Who was that Masked Man?</strong></p><p></p><p>The party surveyed the land beyond the crypt. The hill itself appeared normal, but the weather was completely different. For one thing, though it was night when the party entered the crypt, it seemed to be daytime now. However, it was hard to tell, as a thick fog covered the land, and it even appeared to be lightly snowing. The ground was not as strange, at least where it was present. The hill itself seemed to be floating on an island of land with nothing but the fog and empty air around it. However, a bridge of land connected the hill to another island which apparently held the whole town of Crimmor. Lacking options, the party carefully made their way back to town.</p><p></p><p> When they got there, they were a little surprised to find that it was completely abandoned. An almost tangible silence could be felt in the normally busy town, making the party even more nervous than expected. The continued presence of a semi-welcome visitor didn’t help, either. </p><p></p><p> “Do you have to bring that cat with you?” Ik asked irritably.</p><p></p><p> “What’s wrong with it?” Anastacia replied. “It’s just a normal cat. It didn’t do anything wrong.”</p><p></p><p> Lorren looked doubtful. “Why would a normal cat be so comfortable in a place like this? I bet it’s evil or something.” Lorren’s comments, though, just made Anastacia protect the cat closer.</p><p></p><p> Trying to regain control of the situation, Luke looked at the map and tried to figure out what the party should do next. “A couple of the circles are actually labeled,” he noticed. “The one at the top simply says ‘headquarters.’ That might be the base of whoever sent us to this place.”</p><p></p><p> Grim pointed at the other labeled circle. “I think I prefer this one. Listen to how it’s labeled. ‘In the darkest times, I will watch over you. I will keep you safe until the light of day.’ That sounds more inviting for now.”</p><p></p><p> The party agreed that a safe harbor in a place like this could be helpful, but when the party reached the circled area, they found that it was circled with stone walls and the gate was shut tight, with the same message printed on the gate itself. Enrique tried the lock, but soon he leaned back and shrugged. “I can’t open it,” he admitted, “but that’s no surprise. Didn’t the message say something about the darkest times? Maybe this doesn’t count.”</p><p></p><p> “Or maybe it doesn’t mean us,” Lorren postulated. “What if the message is for Gerard, not us? Maybe it’s keeping the ghost safe here.”</p><p></p><p> Regardless of the message’s meaning, it also meant the party was back at square one. With only one other location standing out to the party, they reluctantly began their journey to the headquarters.</p><p></p><p> As the party neared the headquarters, Anastacia’s cat started to act very strangely. It suddenly started hissing in the direction the party was heading. The party stopped, concerned that the cat was attracted to something the party couldn’t sense. Sure enough, moments later, four figures could be seen slowly shambling towards the party, and at the same time the sound of wings could be heard over the muffled sense of the fog. As Grim and the rest of the party’s leaders approached the figures, Ik was suddenly surprised when the flying monster flew right at her! It resembled a flying reptile, what the scholars tended to call a dinosaur, but all of its skin was removed, revealing nothing but its hideous musculature. Before the party could react, it struck Ik with its claws and flew off again, pausing only long enough for Lorren to get off a simple attack with its staff.</p><p></p><p> Meanwhile, the other four figures closed in on the party. Three looked like similarly skinned wolves with disturbingly human heads, and the fourth was an ape with similar features. The ape and one of the wolves converged on Grim, while the others split up to attack Anastacia and Enrique. The fight was a brief one, however. Only the ape could stand the party’s onslaught for long, especially with Lorren and Elvis providing long-range support. However, just as the fight was starting to wind down, the flying monster struck Ik for a second time!</p><p></p><p> “What is with this place?” Ik complained as she struggled to stay conscious. “What did I ever do to that thing?” While Ik struggled to find some cover from the assault, only to be forced to duck behind the wizard of all people, Elvis drew his bow again and watched the skies. He wouldn’t let the creature make a third attack. As it emerged from the fogs, Elvis buried an arrow in its chest, but it had enough momentum to make one last dive at Ik. Only a surprisingly solid whack from Lorren’s staff was enough to bring it down.</p><p></p><p> After defeating the monsters, the party reached the location the map claimed was the headquarters, only to find an empty crater leading seemingly to nowhere. As the party neared it, though, a spectral image of a soldier wielding a bloody sword appeared. “Speak my name,” a voice boomed out of the empty fog itself. Lacking any knowledge of who the soldier was, however, the party was forced to guess names at random, and the image simply disappeared.</p><p></p><p> “I think we must’ve gotten it right,” Enrique guessed. “If we got it wrong, it probably would’ve attacked us.”</p><p></p><p> The rest of the party, though, expressed doubts. “Maybe this is what we are here for,” Lorren postulated. “If we can determine what this man has to do with Gerard, we can find his spirit or soul, or whatever is powering this place.”</p><p></p><p> Picking one of the circled locations based on nothing but their proximity to the party’s location, they soon came to what clearly looked like some sort of tawdry nightclub or possibly even a brothel. Inside, the party saw two strange monsters. They were humanoid in appearance, but they seemed to be lacking arms. However, they moved as if they had arms, but the arms were somehow trapped in the front of their own bodies, as if their very skin was a living straitjacket! Horrified by the abominations, the party quickly attacked the creatures. Initially, it appeared that both were killed easily enough, but just as the party was ready to continue exploring the building, one of them suddenly rose up, almost like a snake, and lunged at Grim! However, the creature was stabbed by Anastacia and finally killed before it could pose a further threat.</p><p></p><p>As soon as the monsters died, a number of spectral images, including Gerard, appeared in the club. The spectral image of Gerard was collecting some sort of tax of protection payment from the club’s owner. The owner seemed reluctant to pay him, though, and even offered some sort of special “arrangement” instead, but Gerard seemed uninterested. Suddenly, a number of soldiers burst into the room. One of them, who looked just like the spectral image the party saw at the crater, announced himself. “I am Lieutenant Douglas Cartland of the Crimman Guard. Gerard Ophal, you are hereby under arrest for the murder of the town’s mayor.” Gerard, panicked by the sudden arrest, tried to escape, but he was caught and stabbed by Douglas on the way out. The attack was too much for Gerard, and he immediately lost consciousness. Douglas showed little emotion from the attack, save perhaps for disgust. He quickly pointed to one of his soldiers and said, “Take him to Bha-Ael’s Grace. We’ll make sure he stands trial for what he did. And,” he paused, showing some hesitation, “Tell his family what happened. They deserve to know.” After Mr. Cartland finished message, the spectral images faded, leaving only a blank scrap of paper.</p><p></p><p> Lorren was the first to examine the page, and as soon as he touched it, writing began to appear. Lorren read it to the group: “Our new allies are an amazing lot. Mortals have always sought us for supplication, their awe of the darkness and the depths too great for them to live without it, but these mortals, the so-called Unmaking Legion, are different. They embrace the destruction of their own world, or at least their civilizations, and they embrace the power of the Far Realm regardless of its consequences. Despite this, they retain their own individuality. However, they know better than to work alone. Their masters are a clear example of this, as is their allegiance with the Kaorti and our own alliance. They may be all be completely mad, but at least they know how to gain power.” Lorren shrugged. “I have no idea what any of this means,” he admitted.</p><p></p><p> However, as he said it, he could hear a voice whispering in Draconic, a language only he among the party knew. “The Eight shall oppose the remaining six,” the voice whispered. Lorren relayed that to the party as well, though he again admitted his confusion.</p><p></p><p> Meanwhile, Luke was carefully writing the name of the guard down, but the rest of the part didn’t seem interested in going back to the headquarters crater so soon. Either they thought that it couldn’t be that easy, or they wanted to know what happened to Gerard! “What’s Bha-Ael’s Grace?” Ik asked.</p><p></p><p> “Well, Bha-Ael is a goddess of the Sisters,” Luke explained. “It sounds like it’s a temple, house of healing, or possibly both.”</p><p></p><p> Enrique looked up. “I think I saw that place when I was exploring town! I can take you there right now.”</p><p></p><p> Almost eagerly, the party traveled based on Enrique’s directions, and indeed it appeared that the destination was one of the five remaining circles. In fact, they passed another circle on the way, but the party didn’t seem interested in stopping.</p><p></p><p> When they got to Bha-Ael’s Grace, it did indeed appear to be a house of healing, and as soon as the party entered the building, the spectrals began the next scene. This one, though, took place all over the building, forcing the party to split in order watch all of it. In this scene, a woman and two small children entered the house of healing. The woman was addressed as Juliet and she asked to see her husband, suggesting that this was Gerard’s wife. However, as soon as she entered the building, a number of assassins burst in from the front door and a side corridor. Panicking, Juliet fled down the hall to the room where her husband (not to mention Grim and Lorren) was waiting. However, no sooner did she enter the room, but the assassins caught up to her. As Gerard could only look on helplessly, his wife and children were killed before his eyes. The assassins quickly went to work on the witnesses, leaving Gerard alone but killing another patient in his room and three of the nurses. Even more horrifically, as soon as the scene image and the spectral images faded, monsters appeared where the four innocent witnesses were killed!</p><p></p><p> The three nurses appeared as ghoulish creatures, and the patient appeared as another horrific monster with a living straightjacket. The three ghouls were fortunately near Luke, who used his powers to destroy two and drive away the third long enough for the rest of the party to finish it from a distance. Grim and Lorren, however, were less lucky. This time, they were unprepared for an attack, and the monster responded by spitting a powerful acid at Grim. Even though it, burned, however, Grim simply let the pain fuel his anger and charged the monster. The frail Lorren, however, was not so courageous. Low on magic, he simply fired a magic missile, one of the last spells he had today, and then fled down the corridor to warn the others. Soon, Enrique joined Grim, but by the time he got there, Grim was just finishing up the creature, his clothes and much of his body still burning from the acid.</p><p></p><p> When the last of the monsters fell, things started to change again. A puddle of blood started to bubble up from where Juliet’s image was seeing lying. Soon, the dark puddle suddenly spread until it covered the floors, walls, and ceilings of the entire building and beyond. Where it touched, things changed. The abandoned but normal walls of the building transformed into rotting metal, coated with blood or worse, or even seemingly living flesh. The floors, meanwhile, transformed into a metal walkway. Below the ground, there no was seemingly nothing, as if the entire building was floating above oblivion. However, the change also revealed a trap door in Gerard’s room. Showing hesitation after the complete transformation they saw around them, the party cautiously descended.</p><p></p><p> In the building’s basement, the party could heart the sound of roaring water beneath their feet. Unlike most of the grating, it appeared that there was a river or something else real underneath. The tunnel that the stairway opened up into led immediately to a slightly larger room. It was seemingly empty, save for what appeared to be a slightly weaker patch of the grating in the room’s corner. The party prepared to examine it, but as they entered the room, a swarm of monsters rose up out of the water and through the gratings. They resembled cockroaches, but they were larger and had twisted, vaguely human faces! They hungrily descended on Enrique and the rest of the party. Desperately, the heroes tried to fight them off, but nothing was helping. Either the party was using edged weapons that had a hard time striking enough of the monsters, the monsters suddenly and mysteriously recovered from the wounds, or both. Even fire didn’t seem to help, as Grim was disappointed to learn after throwing a vial of oil into the monsters. Lack other options, Elvis led another group to the weak part of the ground in an attempt to make another way out.</p><p></p><p> Suddenly, the party could hear the sound of a horn being blown off in the distance. After the horn sounded a third time, the cockroaches fled back into the water, as if they were afraid of something. The party collectively decided to work on destroying the grating, but suddenly, more spectral images appeared. In this one, the same assassin that killed Juliet was speaking to another woman. The assassin had his mask off, revealing a relatively normal human with messy blond hair. The woman, meanwhile, was an elderly woman who also seemed normal, though her stance and clothing suggested that she was some sort of noblewoman. In the scene, the woman was specifically instructing the assassin to chase Juliet and her children to Gerard’s room and kill them in front of Gerard’s eyes, making it obvious that this attempt to torture Gerard was no accident. When the images faded, another blank piece of paper appeared. Lorren, having decided that he would be the one to gather such obviously arcane and mysterious information, grabbed the paper, but it remained blank. Puzzled, he gave it to Grim, the one closest to him at the time, and this time, the paper filled just as it previously did for Lorren.</p><p></p><p> Grim read the letter to the others, just as Lorren did. “Is the theory of the Adversary true? It’s doubtful, and yet our allies of the Unmaking Legion accept it without question. Most likely, it is nothing but the mindless ideology of mortals infesting the minds of even the most seemingly free of their kind. They somehow instinctively think that if there is a monster, there must also be a hero. Why can’t they accept that the “monster” has always been the default; the mortals are themselves the imposition on reality? No matter. The Legion, regardless, is obsessed with the Adversary’s identity, even wiping out entire villages to try and destroy him, or at least break him, making him incapable of resisting their plans.”</p><p></p><p> As he spoke, more voices whispered to him in orcish, which he again translated. “The Eight shall unite the discordant five,” he interpreted for the party. Before they could try to figure out either of the cryptic messages, though, a figure slowly descended the stairs. It was humanoid, but little of its skin could be seen. It wore a thick apron that was coated in blood and that might have been made out of skin, though the party didn’t care to get a good look! Its most notable feature, though, was a triangular red metal helmet that it wore, which obscured any chance to see its face. It carried a massive sword as long as its arm, and while it looked like the helmet and sword were weighing it down, it moved with surprising speed. Something about this creature made everyone uneasy at best, and by working together everyone was able to quickly destroy the grating. Preferring the unknown to the blood-stained abomination, the party quickly leapt into the river. Moments later, they were washed back outside, but things were no better out here. The town, like the house of healing, had changed. There was no normal ground to be seen at all, just the damned walkways crisscrossing paths throughout town. Besides the house of healing, few buildings at all could be seen. However, the sound of grinding gears and shifting metal reverberated throughout the air. As the party looked wildly around their surroundings, they realized that darkness had come to this place, making it even more dangerous than before!</p><p></p><p> OOC Notes: This puts us halfway through the adventure and at the end of the first session the party played in it. All the monsters in this adventure, at least up to this point, were based on the original games in the Silent Hill series. The story of Gerard Ophal, though, was my own creation, and as the party learns, it will tie in to the demi-plane more as they learn about it. I should warn you, though, that updates may be limited next month. Nanowrimo, the national novel writing month challenge, is coming up in November. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days, so I’ll be mostly busy doing that, and what free time I have left will be mostly dedicated to finishing up the actual next adventure. I’ll see what I can get done, though, and I’ll try to get at least an update or two done.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="LordVyreth, post: 3149572, member: 9626"] [b]Welcome To...:Who was that Masked Man?[/b] The party surveyed the land beyond the crypt. The hill itself appeared normal, but the weather was completely different. For one thing, though it was night when the party entered the crypt, it seemed to be daytime now. However, it was hard to tell, as a thick fog covered the land, and it even appeared to be lightly snowing. The ground was not as strange, at least where it was present. The hill itself seemed to be floating on an island of land with nothing but the fog and empty air around it. However, a bridge of land connected the hill to another island which apparently held the whole town of Crimmor. Lacking options, the party carefully made their way back to town. When they got there, they were a little surprised to find that it was completely abandoned. An almost tangible silence could be felt in the normally busy town, making the party even more nervous than expected. The continued presence of a semi-welcome visitor didn’t help, either. “Do you have to bring that cat with you?” Ik asked irritably. “What’s wrong with it?” Anastacia replied. “It’s just a normal cat. It didn’t do anything wrong.” Lorren looked doubtful. “Why would a normal cat be so comfortable in a place like this? I bet it’s evil or something.” Lorren’s comments, though, just made Anastacia protect the cat closer. Trying to regain control of the situation, Luke looked at the map and tried to figure out what the party should do next. “A couple of the circles are actually labeled,” he noticed. “The one at the top simply says ‘headquarters.’ That might be the base of whoever sent us to this place.” Grim pointed at the other labeled circle. “I think I prefer this one. Listen to how it’s labeled. ‘In the darkest times, I will watch over you. I will keep you safe until the light of day.’ That sounds more inviting for now.” The party agreed that a safe harbor in a place like this could be helpful, but when the party reached the circled area, they found that it was circled with stone walls and the gate was shut tight, with the same message printed on the gate itself. Enrique tried the lock, but soon he leaned back and shrugged. “I can’t open it,” he admitted, “but that’s no surprise. Didn’t the message say something about the darkest times? Maybe this doesn’t count.” “Or maybe it doesn’t mean us,” Lorren postulated. “What if the message is for Gerard, not us? Maybe it’s keeping the ghost safe here.” Regardless of the message’s meaning, it also meant the party was back at square one. With only one other location standing out to the party, they reluctantly began their journey to the headquarters. As the party neared the headquarters, Anastacia’s cat started to act very strangely. It suddenly started hissing in the direction the party was heading. The party stopped, concerned that the cat was attracted to something the party couldn’t sense. Sure enough, moments later, four figures could be seen slowly shambling towards the party, and at the same time the sound of wings could be heard over the muffled sense of the fog. As Grim and the rest of the party’s leaders approached the figures, Ik was suddenly surprised when the flying monster flew right at her! It resembled a flying reptile, what the scholars tended to call a dinosaur, but all of its skin was removed, revealing nothing but its hideous musculature. Before the party could react, it struck Ik with its claws and flew off again, pausing only long enough for Lorren to get off a simple attack with its staff. Meanwhile, the other four figures closed in on the party. Three looked like similarly skinned wolves with disturbingly human heads, and the fourth was an ape with similar features. The ape and one of the wolves converged on Grim, while the others split up to attack Anastacia and Enrique. The fight was a brief one, however. Only the ape could stand the party’s onslaught for long, especially with Lorren and Elvis providing long-range support. However, just as the fight was starting to wind down, the flying monster struck Ik for a second time! “What is with this place?” Ik complained as she struggled to stay conscious. “What did I ever do to that thing?” While Ik struggled to find some cover from the assault, only to be forced to duck behind the wizard of all people, Elvis drew his bow again and watched the skies. He wouldn’t let the creature make a third attack. As it emerged from the fogs, Elvis buried an arrow in its chest, but it had enough momentum to make one last dive at Ik. Only a surprisingly solid whack from Lorren’s staff was enough to bring it down. After defeating the monsters, the party reached the location the map claimed was the headquarters, only to find an empty crater leading seemingly to nowhere. As the party neared it, though, a spectral image of a soldier wielding a bloody sword appeared. “Speak my name,” a voice boomed out of the empty fog itself. Lacking any knowledge of who the soldier was, however, the party was forced to guess names at random, and the image simply disappeared. “I think we must’ve gotten it right,” Enrique guessed. “If we got it wrong, it probably would’ve attacked us.” The rest of the party, though, expressed doubts. “Maybe this is what we are here for,” Lorren postulated. “If we can determine what this man has to do with Gerard, we can find his spirit or soul, or whatever is powering this place.” Picking one of the circled locations based on nothing but their proximity to the party’s location, they soon came to what clearly looked like some sort of tawdry nightclub or possibly even a brothel. Inside, the party saw two strange monsters. They were humanoid in appearance, but they seemed to be lacking arms. However, they moved as if they had arms, but the arms were somehow trapped in the front of their own bodies, as if their very skin was a living straitjacket! Horrified by the abominations, the party quickly attacked the creatures. Initially, it appeared that both were killed easily enough, but just as the party was ready to continue exploring the building, one of them suddenly rose up, almost like a snake, and lunged at Grim! However, the creature was stabbed by Anastacia and finally killed before it could pose a further threat. As soon as the monsters died, a number of spectral images, including Gerard, appeared in the club. The spectral image of Gerard was collecting some sort of tax of protection payment from the club’s owner. The owner seemed reluctant to pay him, though, and even offered some sort of special “arrangement” instead, but Gerard seemed uninterested. Suddenly, a number of soldiers burst into the room. One of them, who looked just like the spectral image the party saw at the crater, announced himself. “I am Lieutenant Douglas Cartland of the Crimman Guard. Gerard Ophal, you are hereby under arrest for the murder of the town’s mayor.” Gerard, panicked by the sudden arrest, tried to escape, but he was caught and stabbed by Douglas on the way out. The attack was too much for Gerard, and he immediately lost consciousness. Douglas showed little emotion from the attack, save perhaps for disgust. He quickly pointed to one of his soldiers and said, “Take him to Bha-Ael’s Grace. We’ll make sure he stands trial for what he did. And,” he paused, showing some hesitation, “Tell his family what happened. They deserve to know.” After Mr. Cartland finished message, the spectral images faded, leaving only a blank scrap of paper. Lorren was the first to examine the page, and as soon as he touched it, writing began to appear. Lorren read it to the group: “Our new allies are an amazing lot. Mortals have always sought us for supplication, their awe of the darkness and the depths too great for them to live without it, but these mortals, the so-called Unmaking Legion, are different. They embrace the destruction of their own world, or at least their civilizations, and they embrace the power of the Far Realm regardless of its consequences. Despite this, they retain their own individuality. However, they know better than to work alone. Their masters are a clear example of this, as is their allegiance with the Kaorti and our own alliance. They may be all be completely mad, but at least they know how to gain power.” Lorren shrugged. “I have no idea what any of this means,” he admitted. However, as he said it, he could hear a voice whispering in Draconic, a language only he among the party knew. “The Eight shall oppose the remaining six,” the voice whispered. Lorren relayed that to the party as well, though he again admitted his confusion. Meanwhile, Luke was carefully writing the name of the guard down, but the rest of the part didn’t seem interested in going back to the headquarters crater so soon. Either they thought that it couldn’t be that easy, or they wanted to know what happened to Gerard! “What’s Bha-Ael’s Grace?” Ik asked. “Well, Bha-Ael is a goddess of the Sisters,” Luke explained. “It sounds like it’s a temple, house of healing, or possibly both.” Enrique looked up. “I think I saw that place when I was exploring town! I can take you there right now.” Almost eagerly, the party traveled based on Enrique’s directions, and indeed it appeared that the destination was one of the five remaining circles. In fact, they passed another circle on the way, but the party didn’t seem interested in stopping. When they got to Bha-Ael’s Grace, it did indeed appear to be a house of healing, and as soon as the party entered the building, the spectrals began the next scene. This one, though, took place all over the building, forcing the party to split in order watch all of it. In this scene, a woman and two small children entered the house of healing. The woman was addressed as Juliet and she asked to see her husband, suggesting that this was Gerard’s wife. However, as soon as she entered the building, a number of assassins burst in from the front door and a side corridor. Panicking, Juliet fled down the hall to the room where her husband (not to mention Grim and Lorren) was waiting. However, no sooner did she enter the room, but the assassins caught up to her. As Gerard could only look on helplessly, his wife and children were killed before his eyes. The assassins quickly went to work on the witnesses, leaving Gerard alone but killing another patient in his room and three of the nurses. Even more horrifically, as soon as the scene image and the spectral images faded, monsters appeared where the four innocent witnesses were killed! The three nurses appeared as ghoulish creatures, and the patient appeared as another horrific monster with a living straightjacket. The three ghouls were fortunately near Luke, who used his powers to destroy two and drive away the third long enough for the rest of the party to finish it from a distance. Grim and Lorren, however, were less lucky. This time, they were unprepared for an attack, and the monster responded by spitting a powerful acid at Grim. Even though it, burned, however, Grim simply let the pain fuel his anger and charged the monster. The frail Lorren, however, was not so courageous. Low on magic, he simply fired a magic missile, one of the last spells he had today, and then fled down the corridor to warn the others. Soon, Enrique joined Grim, but by the time he got there, Grim was just finishing up the creature, his clothes and much of his body still burning from the acid. When the last of the monsters fell, things started to change again. A puddle of blood started to bubble up from where Juliet’s image was seeing lying. Soon, the dark puddle suddenly spread until it covered the floors, walls, and ceilings of the entire building and beyond. Where it touched, things changed. The abandoned but normal walls of the building transformed into rotting metal, coated with blood or worse, or even seemingly living flesh. The floors, meanwhile, transformed into a metal walkway. Below the ground, there no was seemingly nothing, as if the entire building was floating above oblivion. However, the change also revealed a trap door in Gerard’s room. Showing hesitation after the complete transformation they saw around them, the party cautiously descended. In the building’s basement, the party could heart the sound of roaring water beneath their feet. Unlike most of the grating, it appeared that there was a river or something else real underneath. The tunnel that the stairway opened up into led immediately to a slightly larger room. It was seemingly empty, save for what appeared to be a slightly weaker patch of the grating in the room’s corner. The party prepared to examine it, but as they entered the room, a swarm of monsters rose up out of the water and through the gratings. They resembled cockroaches, but they were larger and had twisted, vaguely human faces! They hungrily descended on Enrique and the rest of the party. Desperately, the heroes tried to fight them off, but nothing was helping. Either the party was using edged weapons that had a hard time striking enough of the monsters, the monsters suddenly and mysteriously recovered from the wounds, or both. Even fire didn’t seem to help, as Grim was disappointed to learn after throwing a vial of oil into the monsters. Lack other options, Elvis led another group to the weak part of the ground in an attempt to make another way out. Suddenly, the party could hear the sound of a horn being blown off in the distance. After the horn sounded a third time, the cockroaches fled back into the water, as if they were afraid of something. The party collectively decided to work on destroying the grating, but suddenly, more spectral images appeared. In this one, the same assassin that killed Juliet was speaking to another woman. The assassin had his mask off, revealing a relatively normal human with messy blond hair. The woman, meanwhile, was an elderly woman who also seemed normal, though her stance and clothing suggested that she was some sort of noblewoman. In the scene, the woman was specifically instructing the assassin to chase Juliet and her children to Gerard’s room and kill them in front of Gerard’s eyes, making it obvious that this attempt to torture Gerard was no accident. When the images faded, another blank piece of paper appeared. Lorren, having decided that he would be the one to gather such obviously arcane and mysterious information, grabbed the paper, but it remained blank. Puzzled, he gave it to Grim, the one closest to him at the time, and this time, the paper filled just as it previously did for Lorren. Grim read the letter to the others, just as Lorren did. “Is the theory of the Adversary true? It’s doubtful, and yet our allies of the Unmaking Legion accept it without question. Most likely, it is nothing but the mindless ideology of mortals infesting the minds of even the most seemingly free of their kind. They somehow instinctively think that if there is a monster, there must also be a hero. Why can’t they accept that the “monster” has always been the default; the mortals are themselves the imposition on reality? No matter. The Legion, regardless, is obsessed with the Adversary’s identity, even wiping out entire villages to try and destroy him, or at least break him, making him incapable of resisting their plans.” As he spoke, more voices whispered to him in orcish, which he again translated. “The Eight shall unite the discordant five,” he interpreted for the party. Before they could try to figure out either of the cryptic messages, though, a figure slowly descended the stairs. It was humanoid, but little of its skin could be seen. It wore a thick apron that was coated in blood and that might have been made out of skin, though the party didn’t care to get a good look! Its most notable feature, though, was a triangular red metal helmet that it wore, which obscured any chance to see its face. It carried a massive sword as long as its arm, and while it looked like the helmet and sword were weighing it down, it moved with surprising speed. Something about this creature made everyone uneasy at best, and by working together everyone was able to quickly destroy the grating. Preferring the unknown to the blood-stained abomination, the party quickly leapt into the river. Moments later, they were washed back outside, but things were no better out here. The town, like the house of healing, had changed. There was no normal ground to be seen at all, just the damned walkways crisscrossing paths throughout town. Besides the house of healing, few buildings at all could be seen. However, the sound of grinding gears and shifting metal reverberated throughout the air. As the party looked wildly around their surroundings, they realized that darkness had come to this place, making it even more dangerous than before! OOC Notes: This puts us halfway through the adventure and at the end of the first session the party played in it. All the monsters in this adventure, at least up to this point, were based on the original games in the Silent Hill series. The story of Gerard Ophal, though, was my own creation, and as the party learns, it will tie in to the demi-plane more as they learn about it. I should warn you, though, that updates may be limited next month. Nanowrimo, the national novel writing month challenge, is coming up in November. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days, so I’ll be mostly busy doing that, and what free time I have left will be mostly dedicated to finishing up the actual next adventure. I’ll see what I can get done, though, and I’ll try to get at least an update or two done. [/QUOTE]
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