Bounty Hunters - Session 34

Outta Da Gurg

• The party trundles through the newly ensnowed Tepest.
  • Elian's expert tracking and Madrin magic makes the experience endurable, despite the difficulty.
  • As they travel, Madrin adds a new name, Helongum, which she begins calling herself by.
  • Some decisions are made based on the party's extremely accurate map, and they eventually make it back to the Nobody's Inn.
• They burst in, and unsurprisingly, Bryonna is right where the party left her.

Bryonna: Well, don't you folks know how to make an entrance! Come in, and shut the dang door, givin me a chill right down to my bones. Bryonna: Y'all look like you could use some root tea, warm ya up. Come on in, get out of that storm! Bryonna: This sure is one heck of a storm. Lucky you found your way here, weather like this could be the death of ya Whip: Tend to agree Helongum: Need to get out... You spend some time by the fire warming up. Some small measure of your weariness dissipates. Bryonna serves root tea to the group. Whip: How ya been Bry Bern's Lost Daughter sips her tea. Helongum: We need to get home, can we get back to that cave we came in from Helongum turns to Bern's daughter Helongum: And where is home for you? Once we get back to the world as you know it. Bryonna: Oh, I don't have many travelers, but you'll have to be more specific. Are you talking about my old lover? He came from distant lands. Bryonna: Or the outsider who passed through this way more recently? Bryonna: Ohhh, what was his name? Bryonna tilts her skull in thought. Bern's Lost Daughter is disengaged and lost in thought. Bryonna: Firan Zal’honan, I think! Bryonna: That was it. An outsider's name for sure. A travelling scholar, he said. Bryonna: Visited a great many realms, so he claimed. I never saw him again, so maybe he moved on. Or died. Lots of folks die. Bryonna: most of em, actually. Helongum: Did he say anything about how he visited those realms? Bryonna: Who, Firan? Why yes ma'am he did. Bryonna: He said he'd done it a slew of times Helongum pulls out a notebook Bryonna: Said it was something of a leap of faith, which sure seems uncertain to me, but that's what he said. Bryonna: All's ya gotta do, he said, is hold a special token from some a nearby realm and head off into the fog. Bryonna: Now, my momma always said that folks who got lost in the fog got lost forever, but maybe with a token it's easier to find a path. He sure talked about a lot of other lands I'd never heard of. Bryonna: Darkon....Dementilu.... Barovia... Whip: And that boyfriend you talked about, was that kind of the same story? Whip: Bet he was a real looker get a catch like you, Bry Bryonna: To be honest, don't really know. We never really talked about it. Sometimes folks just... appear... from the fog, too. Bryonna: Zal’honan said that, for whatever reasons, these tokens end up littering the realms. Either as a result of past travelers, or perhaps a trick of the universe. Bryonna: he often talked about the world as if it was .... not alive but... thoughtful and deliberate, but not in a kind way. Helongum: Did the traveller, Firan, say anything about these tokens? If it was just a physical thing or if there was, magic about them? Bryonna: He said that they'd be mundane, not magical. Bryonna: I believe he said the token that got him here was a crown of white amelias. Bryonna: I think Ivan had a coin from his realm featuring some lost king. Bryonna: that carnival ticket sounds like it might be one. Never heard of the The Carnival before. Probably you've found some others in your travels. Bryonna: So, it seems to me from talkin to him, these would be tokens that had some sort of 'symbolic resonance' with the home realm. The World, he'd like to say, likes to invert expectations. Bryonna: The more mundane the more likely. Bryonna: I don't think you're getting it, sweetheart. Bryonna: It's not just "any random item" from the other realm. He was flummoxed, too. The more you want to set rules on the world, he said, the shiftier it got. Helongum: Did he ever travel with other people? Bryonna: Well, you folks look plumb exhausted. Feel free to stay here the night if you want. hopefully this storm will have passed by then. Bryonna: Who? Firan? I don't think so. Didn't really get much about his backstory he mostly talked about his realmwalking Bryonna: He kept talking about "escape" which sounds to be like a man chasin' death, but perhaps he's right and the world obeys metaphors not laws. Bryonna: Oh, that might also be one. That sure seems weird and resonant.

• The party spends some time gathering items that fit the description, and they come up with a likely list
  • CARNIVAL TICKET, UNTORN
  • UNBREAKABLE JAR OF GREEN GOO
  • SMALL MIRROR IN A WOODEN FRAME
  • DRIED CROWN OF WHITE CAMELLIAS
• They vote to attempt to realmwalk with the mirror, after a rest.

Bryonna: that's wild! I've never seen a blizzard like this. It defies all logic. Whip: We think it might have something to do with the fighting witches Bryonna: Hm, witches be fightin Whip: Bit of news for whoever comes through next, Mother Lorinda's sisters have escaped the cauldron Bryonna: I don't know anything about sisters, but I'll let travelers know. Whip: Been a real pleasure Bry. I actually do hope we see you again sometime, but it probably won't be any time soon. Take care Whip: Here, spice this place up a bit Whip slams a pair of carved, bone dice on the table

• They travel about half a day toward the edge of the realm. The icy rain chills everyone to the bone.
• Reaching the edge, they contemplate only for a moment before stepping off into the mist.
• The fog changes quickly -- too quickly -- shifting immediately into a humid, warm soup. As it clears, they are already sweating from the scorching heat of summer.

When you finally emerge from the fog, you stand in a land that is clearly not Tepest, but does not look like home, either. a realm of harsh, unforgiving wastelands, stretches out before you. Here the earth is scarred and deformed; it heaves and undulates unnaturally as if frozen in time at the moment of some cataclysmic upheaval. Pockets of twisted mana-infused rock jut forth from the landscape like jagged teeth, their surfaces shimmering with faint eldritch energy that disturbs the air around them. Bern: Well. Fuck. Whip: At least it's not cold as fuck anymore GM: You stand upon the edge of the Mists. Ahead of you is a blasted wasteland.

• The party doesn't like the look of what's ahead of them, and rolls the dice a second time, choosing the jar of goo.
• This time, the air becomes tinted with the smell of ammonia.

Awakening with a start, you find yourselves lying within the fractured husk of a fluid-filled tube, the viscous substance slowly seeping out into the cold metallic floor. Around you stretch the twisted and chaotic confines of a strange, underground complex — an unfathomable hive of alien machinery and pulsating, bioluminescent conduits and tunnels of volcanic rock. The air is thick with an electric hum and the faint scent of ozone, overlaid with a more organic tang that sets your teeth on edge. The darkened corridors teem with grotesque life; shadowy figures scuttle in your periphery, their forms too aberrant for your minds to fully comprehend. But one thing is clear: this place is ruled by creatures never meant for mortal ken. Their eerie presence permeates every corner, their psychic residue imbuing each chamber with a palpable sense of dread. As you navigate this labyrinthine nightmare, you can't shake off the feeling that reality here is as transient as a dream — or perhaps even more disturbingly, that this might indeed be dream from which there's no waking up. Joana: Doesn't seem better.