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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Echolocation" data-source="post: 8177851" data-attributes="member: 7011911">Session 41Courtesy of Ella's player(Sigh) ...Ghost train… Plane of death! …Serial killer… Less than 10 minutes to stay alive! …Sound familiar? It should! Because that’s how we started last week’s session: rocketing toward an early demise as our physical bodies were dragged ever further from our spiritual ones - while some misogynistic, murdering naughty word tried to justify his actions to us. John was having none of that nonsense and shot him down cold. Quite literally: as a full-round of hasted rapid shot bullets put Olivert Boone down on the carriage roof and bleeding out. He stabilised but… we didn’t care - we were goneskies. Lisandra did stop to pluck a piece of paper from his pocket though: it contained instructions on how to kill us. Charming.We continued our mad dash along the train roof: pausing briefly to recast Haste and murder some scythe-wielding spirits. As we ran, the world around us became ever darker: the sun and sky darkening until the only light that seemed to exist was the purple glow at the front of the train. John compensated by turning himself into a human torch via wild shape - leaving Angharad, presumably, very jealous - but he was brought up short when Lisandra’s arm started summoning spirits for us to fight. Or… just one spirit really, and it was accompanied by a story! Narrated in Lisandra’s own charming Father Balthazar voice.And yes, Lisandra, we know you’re good at faking accents: there’s no need to show off.Father Balthazar’s story was… as creepy as you might expect from a murderous, self-aggrandizing naughty word who alternates narrating in first and third person and likes to curse people’s arms. And the ghost the story summoned didn’t seem much impressed either: as it turned its empty eyes on Lisandra and ripped out her memories: inflicting two negative levels.[SPOILER="A Nemian Legend"]As Lisandra stands in Nem, the words etched onto her bone come to life. Lisandra's very body knows each word. As the words take over, ghostly wisps act out the scene. Upon its conclusion, victims from the scene rises up and attack Lisandra (and allies). Although the party can fend off these spirits, only a blow by Lisandra with a Blade of Srasama, restored from Balthazar's corruption, can put them to rest. Once the final story to and the last spirit put is put to rest, Balthazar's Nemian Legend is destroyed. He would no longer be capable of regenerating when destroyed.The spirit ripping out memories and crushing them doesn't translate to a mechanical loss of memory. I just wanted to represent the events of which Lisandra had gained her past two levels disappearing.The story recited by Lisandra describes Balthazar's first delve into the Perpetual City.[/SPOILER]Angharad brought out the big flames though, and incinerated the spirit before it could do anything more: sending its incorporeal essence wisping away on the breeze. We made our way to the front of the train - Lisandra briefly becoming distracted by the spirit of a train guard which she decided to leave in peace - and contemplated the source of the purple glow.It was coming from a lantern: a magical one - naturally. One that allowed that rarest of magical phenomena: interplanar travel. Or, well… we’ve been assured it’s rare. I mean, I assume it is? Even though it keeps happening to us all the titans-damned time.Thoroughly familiar with this nonsense by now, John was quick to discern that we could return to our home plane by simply extinguishing the lantern. Unfortunately, turning it upside down and attempting to empty the oil failed to produce any results, so the gunslinger just shot it to pieces instead. In a flash of purple light we found ourselves back in our physical bodies, with Law and Malia looking at us rather concerned. Oh, and our entire train cabin and half our belongings were covered in Nem-related runes. What a coincidence![SPOILER="What was covered in ruins?"]<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">One of the coins Bree handed to John, claiming she won money by betting on them in the Nalaam arena.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The sunglasses given to Ella by Dan. Although not part of the Ob, Ottavia (via Luc) started a conversation with Dan. After he mentioning making sunglasses for Ella, Ottavia asked to borrow them. With subtle misdirection, she palms them off to Luc who inscribes a rune. Not mentioned in the recaps, the party saw Ottavia, Luc, and Dan chatting at the station. Ottavia was trying them on the sunglasses.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The jewelry handed to Angharad and Lisandra by Ottavia and Luc. Hence Luc's nervousness.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">And of course, their actual cabin room for good measure.</li> </ul>[/SPOILER]Gifts from Dan, Bree and Ottavia all proved trapped: etched with runes designed to draw us into the Plane of death and ruin upon the activation of the lantern. This was… disheartening, to say the least. But we regained our wits, told Law to look after Olivert’s gun, and dashed off in chase of Ottavia and Luc - who’d been spotted leaving in a carriage earlier, along with Bree and Verzubak. Dirty, rotten traitors.Angharad bribed a carriage caller extravagantly to find out where the four had gone: and received a slip of paper in return, asking for transport to Isle of Odiem. It wasn’t until we reached the harbour that we realised we knew exactly where that was. Pete’s story of his long-dead ancestor came back to us, and we realised we were headed for the infamous Crypta Hereticarum.The Roscommon took us there, few questions asked, and we set foot upon the rusty shores. At the crumbling lighthouse we discovered just one of Luc’s party though: Ottavia, who had been set there to destroy us if we managed to survive Nem. Well, her and the thousands of undead that cover the Isle at night, that is.We managed to avoid fighting either of them though: convincing the... essentially good-hearted oracle that we meant her no harm - and that the Obscurati were actually the menacing party here. We all retreated into the Vault of Heresies to wait out the night - not particularly keen on being nibbled on by zombies - and managed to make it… a good thirty minutes, before we gave into the whispers in our heads and ventured further into the crypts.The traps were disabled, the treasures gone, but... some ominous remnants of its history remained: corpses and doors marked with a burning hand.We made our way to the final chamber, and there encountered... the infamous: Gene. The lunatic godhand was talking to a mirror as we arrived, but wasted no time in darting off into the darkness. A short game of hide and seek ensued: with Ella being the unfortunate soul to encounter the monk and his doppelganger mirror buddies. Fortunately mirror Ella turned out to be absolute garbage. Unfortunately, Gene was not.We had Angharad the doppelganger-hating Cipith on our side though - and a convenient oracle healer - and it wasn’t too long before Gene was dead and the irritating mirrors were smashed.The most terrifying confrontation of all still remained though: meeting Ashima-Shimtu, Lady of the Forked Tongue, Last of the High Fiends, Seneschal of the Demonocracy, and Keeper of the Secret Which Must Not Be Lost.She was… precisely as Pete described her: terrifying, meditative, sad. Hanging from twelve chains hooked into her bare flesh, while a thirteenth swung free and holy water fumes constantly burned her wounds.The Clergy really are naughty words.We had a conversation, and the demoness revealed that it was she who had shared with mankind the secret to binding a goddess: and to bringing Srasama into reality in her avatar’s form. This was very nearly enough to make Angharad do something very stupid, but thankfully he refrained and settled for being mildly threatening later on.Meanwhile Ashima-Shimtu had granted us the use of her teleportation pool, and we had a big decision to make: do we run away to become pirates? Go on vacay wherever in the world we like? Or actually do our job? Dilemmas…Thankfully we were distracted by Ottavia: who, after some discussion, revealed the location of the secret meeting between Luc and the Obscurati leaders, and agreed to seek sanctuary in Flint - provided Delft agreed of course. Turns out our boss was more than happy to actually receive some form of communication from his agents for the first time in days, and accepted Ottavia teleporting into his office with only mild gun-brandishing.Left alone in an ancient crypt with a demoness, we decided to rest, plan, and teleport to Vendricce in the morning - from there to head to the Obscurati meeting and hopefully not get ourselves killed.Hopefully…My optimism fades with every passing moment… But hey! We’ve done so well with stealth missions in the past, right?Text RoleplayBetween sessions, the party has an opportunity to roleplay over a text channel in our Discord sever. The setting for this week's roleplay was Ashima-Shimtu's room. Here are some snippets.</blockquote>

Verification