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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8704211" data-attributes="member: 508">INTERLUDE: A VOICE IN THE HEADPC Roster:  Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 7             Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 3/wizard 3/spellsword 1             Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 3/paladin 4             Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 5/rogue 2             Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 7Game Session Date: 23 July 2022 - - -The group was several days out of Snail Valley and Zander Quilson had been very quiet and introspective.  Thurloe had also been very quiet, giving Horse a break by having him follow along behind the mule-driven wagon, his reins tied to the back while Thurloe sat in the back of the wagon and pored over his various captured spellbooks, trying to puzzle out how to cast some of the spells he had yet to master.  Zander had no such excuse for his silence, though, for he wasn't actively engaged in anything like magical research; he just found he was easily distracted, his thoughts whirling from one distant memory to another.The group had taken to using their extradimensional lamp as a mobile headquarters (and a means by which they saved money on inn rooms).  If they stopped in a small village or town, Xandro Silverstrings always sought out the local taverns and inns to see if they'd be interested in hiring him on to play and sing during their evening meal and into the night, often just for room and board, occasionally for a bit of coin on top of that.  But that at least got him a room for the night, and if he brought in the lamp - with the others in the group, to include the animals and the wagon already stashed inside the extradimensional space - that saved a considerable amount on rooms and stabling costs.This particular night, the group had settled in for the evening, with Alewyth claiming the one bed they had in the night hag's bedroom and Wakuren bunking down on his bedroll in the same room, Thurloe camping out in the alchemy lab, Xandro sleeping in the back of the wagon (which they left in the main entrance room, as the wagon was too big to go anywhere else), and Zander had laid out his bedroll in the same main entryway, along the curved wall of the hemispherical chamber.  The elf was just settling himself down to sleep when he suddenly heard a voice in his head.<...hear me?> it said.  At first, Zander wasn't sure he'd heard anything at all, for the voice was very faint.  Then he wondered if it might have been one of the moogles in the Dreamlands, as they'd found a way for them to communicate with the dreamwalkers through the dreamstones embedded in particular pieces of the heroes' equipment - Zander's jade cooshee, for example, now had eyes made of the strange stones.  But no, the elf realized if it had been a moogle speaking to him, the last word would have invariably been "kupo."<Can you hear me?> the voice repeated, and Zander sat up in his bedroll.  "I can hear you," he replied, causing Xandro to sit up from the back of the wagon and see what was going on.  "Lights on," the bard commanded and the unseen source of illumination bathed the area in its soft glow.  "What's going on, Zander?" he asked."Are you hearing anybody talking telepathically?" the elf asked.<You'll be the only one who can hear me,> the voice informed Zander, <since I'm living inside you.>"You're what?" demanded the elf."What's going on?" demanded Thurloe, the light from the entry dome spilling into the alchemy lab where he'd been just about asleep.  "What are you clowns up to?""Zander's getting some kind of telepathic message," Xandro informed the grumpy swordsman.<Now, I don't want you to freak out,> said the voice in Zander's head.  <You're not going to freak out, are you?  Take some calming breasts...no, that's not right...what's the word?  Yes, breaths!   Do that breathing thing you do.>"Who are you?" demanded Zander, starting to hyperventilate.  "How did you get in me?"  This course of conversation had Thurloe and Xander, both now wide awake, looking at each other in confusion.<I'm actually a part of a larger being from another entirely different plane of existence, and I sent a portion of my body into your world, where I happened to latch onto you.  I've spent the last few weeks growing throughout your body until now I've finally expanded into a large enough network that I'm capable of communicating with you.  Now, have you been doing that breathing thing?  Are you all nice and calm?>"As calm as can be expected.""Okay then, look down at your right leg.  No, the front leg.  Arm!  That's what it's called!  Look down at your right arm.  And remember what I said about not freaking out.>As instructed, Zander rolled up his sleeve and looked down at his right arm.  On the forearm, just below the elbow, there was a small, brown discoloration - a beauty mark, they were called.  Zander didn't remember ever noticing he had a beauty mark in that particular place before.And then the "beauty mark" cracked open and the elf found himself looking down at a tiny eye on his arm that was staring right back up at him.  Quite the contrary to his instructions, Zander found himself freaking out.  <Calm down!> the voice repeated.  <Deep breaths!  I'm not going to hurt you!  Hey!  Are you listening to me?>  Zander was crying out in a panicked voice, and when the beauty mark extended itself a good eighteen inches on a thin, flexible tendril extruding from the elf's forearm so the eye could stare directly into Zander's face, the effect did nothing but increase the panic he was feeling.Eventually, though, his heart stopped racing and he realized although this was certainly a strange turn of events, no real harm had come to him: the creature wasn't able to control his body, nor was he feeling any kind of pain from having this thing living inside of him.  "Why are you here?" he asked the eye, which had retracted itself painlessly back into Zander's forearm once he had started calming down.<I'm an explorer,> the voice said.  <This process gives me the opportunity to see other worlds.  And this is a pretty boring world so far.  I mean, those trees you have here?  All they do is move a little bit on their tops when it's windy - they never seem to levitate in the air, or explode into a flock of fish or anything.  Your whole world seems pretty...static, is that the word?>  Zander agreed that it was.  Over the next few minutes, he and the creature inside him - the part of the larger creature, apparently called a nibish-riule, which was from a place called the Far Realm - discussed how their merging had come about.  Back up in Rindicane's tower, Zander had stepped from the tower's balcony on the Plane of Shadows and into the room with the magic window, which Rindicane had readjusted to open into the Far Realm.  The nibish-riule, intrigued by this window into another world, extended a piece of itself through the window (quite nice not having to pierce the planes itself) and adhered onto Zander's body, where it grew into a full network in a matter of weeks.  Zander now had six of these "beauty marks" on his body, each capable of extending on the tip of a thin tendril to look about it.  One thing the elf quickly latched upon was the fact that the nibish-riule could be put on guard duty if needed; Zander could be sound asleep and the six tendrils could be extended in all directions to look for danger, as the nibish-riule needed no sleep.  However, it would need to be trained on what did and did not constitute a threat in this world, lest it awaken Zander at the approach of a mouse or a dragonfly.  Zander also had to explain the concept of sleep to the extradimensional creature, who during its weeks of silent observation had merely assumed the elf died for a while each night and then returned to life.  The creature found the concept of sleep to be something of an oddity, but certainly more mundane than continually dying and returning to life.  It figured; this world seemed to go out of its way to be boring.It had hundreds of questions with which to pester Zander, but the elf convinced it he needed to sleep and they could talk again in the morning.  He was somewhat surprised when the creature agreed; he'd been expecting it to put up more of an argument.  <That's okay,> it said amicably, <we have the rest of your life to talk....>  That didn't put Zander any at ease! - - - This was a plot point I had been planning on springing when the PCs all leveled up to 8th, but I fast-forwarded it a bit when I came to the realization that Zander's player, Joe, will be leaving for college shortly and we only have two regular sessions with him before Zander becomes a temporary NPC who's passed around among the other players to see who'll be running him (in addition to their own PC) each session.  I wanted the introduction of the "worry-wart" (as the "beauty mark" extensions of the nibish-riule are often called, given the creature's concerns for the well-being of its host, since if the host dies the nibish-riule loses its interesting window into the strange, new world it's being allowed to see) to occur with Joe "at the helm," so to speak.  And since this had no real bearing on the adventure we played through the session, I decided to just write it up as an interlude.</blockquote>

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