Apparently Valenci knows how to have a good time. I decided to be the designated sober member of our group for the evening. It took some prodding, but we eventually made our way to the Church of Aisling.

We did our best to convey what information we had to the High Seer of Aisling. It is our hope that he would speak with the High Necromancer of Caillech. Perhaps the Kalbs reference bridge that history, if only for an hour.

Leo volunteered to have his future examined. Interestingly there are a fair number of threads that would have him named heir to the Household. He doesn’t seem happy about it. Joviality aside, I understand why. When you are afraid of losing your King, you place a pawn with a funny hat on the board. Strangely, I think Leo might be able to rise to the challenge…

We decided to sleep the night at the Church of Aisling to avoid trouble on the way back. Something is tickling my mind about the jester competition. I somehow doubt the powers that are and those that should not be are leaving the competition alone. Alas, sleep takes me.

Making our way to the Government Quarter, we attempted to find Lady C. To make our way down to the basement, Leo donned his magical hat and became Corporal Winniefocker to the elf guard. I could only hear what happened next. I believe *Leo*’s and the elf’s interaction at the counter involves orange jam and chest hair.

Meeting Lady C, again, was bracing. She is obviously hiding her true identity. Lady C also sees far too much. Thankfully we moved the conversation onto the tar. All in all, a fairly uneventful day so far…

Meeting the High Necromancer was an experience. I have not met a skeleton so serene before. The matter she brought forth was Nathaniel, who had been revived by Caillech. Apparently he had been murdered by Cinnamon when she had been possessed in an aethereal bubble.

It was when Nathaniel started speaking about walling away that something clicked. That ‘something’ was a being on the other side. Cinnamon ran off.

After some rather delicious muffins, we went to the Monastery dedicated to Gejitsu. After bantering with the old and mentally retired gatekeeper, we found Cinnamon and her golden-eyed friend, Afrem (pardon the likely mispelling). They obviously wanted to spend some time alone.

This became more apparent when “Cinnamon” kicked her friend out the window onto the street. Several things quickly became apparent. Either Cinnamon was secretly a psychopathic ninja or she was possessed by a life-draining energy vampire.

We (or rather, they) killed the evil Cinnamon (I believe good Cinnamon snapped her neck), the crystalline construct, and a bladed figure of goo. My primary contribution was summoning an Ape that brought Cinnamon’s friend to safety. Also asking the dead evil Cinnamon a few pointed questions.

This and reading into her fortune revealed that Outsiders beyond the Primal Plane were involved. They were likely the ones who saw into our dreams. If that was the case, they knew why we were dangerous to their plans. And they knew our weaknesses.

If the Outsiders are involved, it may be time to bring the Churches into this matter.

The Kalbs certainly travel in style. An armored carriage with a full complement of goldcloaks. Finally a chance to speak with the king. Except we were bushwhacked by goblinoids who “rescued” us on the behalf of “Papa”. A lesson to be learned: act slowly enough and it’s as if you chose not to act.

What appeared as a misunderstanding nearly became a tragedy. The Goldcloaks, men whom were simply doing their duty to protect us, were going to be torn apart by the crowd. I must commend Leo for convincing Papa to not have them killed out of hand. A quiet prayer to Benjiro didn’t hurt either.

Surprisingly, it was Cinnamon who asked Lord Kalb to spare their lives. The behavior of Lord Kalb towards his children was odd. Besides the gamemanship of Lord Kalb’s initial arrival, he ignored Byron and Raisa unless they spoke. Lord Kalb honestly seemed to trust Leo. Some see Leo as a foppish canary in the mine… now, I’m not so sure.

They told the Duke everything. I did my best to fill in the holes, but it was difficult doing so in front of such a personage. Telling us about what happened to his son and the chancellor’s deception, well, it all started to make sense.

The better question is- can we stop this in time? A week… we will have to see.

I felt obligated to tell Cinnamon the truth. I’ve only known her for a day and a half, but it was apparent that she was the conscience of the group. A position she feels deeply uncomfortable with. It’s not often that one is rewarded for doing good. It felt right to tell her the truth. To offer an opportunity to speak with her mother.

I sent the letters to [Redacted]. I hope that will be enough to arrange a private meeting with the King.

I suppose my good deed of the day was to rejuvenate a construct. Apparently he wanted to kill the Builder. I can’t really comment on the morality of that, but I admire his principles. Lesson: the Kalb scions and Cinnamon seem to know some of the most interesting things going on in this city…

As I was saying, there was a very large black wolf. For those insisting on an elaborate description, it was the size of a small carriage.

Initial reactions varied from horror to berserk rage. I began summoning elementals of Earth and things quickly devolved into a great deal of stabbing and spellfire.

When the High Priest of Aisling made it to safety, I realized that we were the first to attack- not the hound itself. I spoke in the language of Ten No (well, I had too) and it proved… diplomatic. Praise Benjiro!

He/she/it managed to warp reality enough to allow others to talk with her. Eventually matters settled themselves out amicably between the misunderstood Aetherial Puppy and the murderous Kalbs with a prostitute.

Raisa had thankfully recovered from what had been done to her. In my short observations, the four seemed very comfortable with violence together. Byron is apparently a fire mage, which doesn’t bode well at all. Leo and Raisa are apparently more of a martial bend.

Raisa certainly seemed to relish using her lochaber. Our heir presumptive seemed a bit perplexed. I hazard a guess that he is more comfortable in a duel than with poking giant hounds.

Where exactly our dear Cinnamon had that dagger hidden we may never know.

In the future I will keep descriptions of battle to a bare minimum. I assume the readership is full of high-minded intellectuals who would, of course, protest any a ten-copper dreadful. This shall be a proper dry historical account.

I did have a nice conversation with Cinnamon, which involved speaking with her about following a divine being of lost causes. Intriguing and I’m very curious to see more of her faith.

After the hound matter was wrapped up we went to go see a skinthief. Specifically a murderer who was mentally ill enough to take on his victim’s personality. The wisdom of keeping a skin thief in the Big House is debatable. Silly things like justice aside, I doubt his current living situation will lead to an upswing of his long term well-being.

As tasked to me by the High Priest, I performed a vision to identify the Enemy arrayed against us. I promptly started puking tar. You can surmise that the Enemy is likely cosmically suspect and possessing of a certain sense of humor.

We got ourselves quite drunk that night and Cinnamon received a surprising letter. This Lady M apparently believes her to be Lady Corene Terrace Mann. It took me a while to remember that name from a forgotten genealogical record: a stillborn of the Mann family.

Then I recalled who her parents were. Or at least one of them. The lady I have a passing acquaintance with. Unfortunately, I am bound by word to protect her honor. Damn legality. If Byron didn’t mention blackmailing with such hopeful glee, I might have gotten away with simply telling her. As it was, Cinnamon kindly offered to walk me home. I made a compromising offer that would satisfy my bonds and she wisely asked for the night to think about it.

It all made sense. The faked stillbirth, her neutrally-magical cat, being caught up in great events with the Kalbs… and here I thought it was the Kalbs who were the political oil to the flames rising around us.

At the end of our first day together, my general impressions were that my companions are good people when they are able to relate to you. They tend to focus their morality in the context of themselves. Certainly not a bad thing. I’d say stupidity is the hallmark of the morally righteous. Still, I think there is greatness here- we’ll see if it flourishes.

Also, I’ve had my life and my guts threatened more times in the past twenty-four hours than in the past month. Let’s leave things at “exciting”.

The King of course called upon us in the morning. How Cinnamon will relay what we know will be of utmost importance. I hope she rises to the challenge…

Where to begin?

Well, all important matters begin in a tavern. This one was called The Big House. I suppose ‘tavern’ is used loosely in this context. Let’s just say alcohol isn’t the only thing that flows freely here.

I arranged for a meeting with the three Kalbs Byron, Leo, and Raisa who were accompanied by a spice of negotiable virtue. My impressions:

Byron must have been dropped on the head as a child. I’d say at least five times given the number of personalities I’ve seen. There was something off-putting about him beyond his madness. Is he the one who is does not have…? Hmm, I will need to perform an augury.

Raisa is an angry young woman and a follower of Akhlut, Godling of Cold Wind and Darkness. Reminds me of one of the berserk from the deep woods out west. She has a good head on her shoulders. Makes me wonder what she could have been if the Kalb’s had harnessed and directed that intellect? I of all people know it’s a terrible thing to waste a black sheep.

Leo protests too much. He has obvious affections of being a dandy layabout. Yet, between the jokes he asks incisive political questions and is quick on his feet. Between that and actually having a somewhat rumpled humanity, I would gamble that Leo could be a great man if he ever moved past his fear of responsibility.

Cinnamon. I’ve asked around the Big House and she obviously caters to the more, mmm, exotic tastes. No one can offer up her real name nor does anyone really question the fact that she has a familiar. A familiar unaffiliated with any known divine source. Cinnamon follows Gijutsu. Strange for someone who professes to have no real causes… If there is anyone who is a good person at heart but lost, it’s her.

Joining them was a bumpy transition but a transition nonetheless. I had to reveal that I was a Seer of Aisling. Not unexpected, but I was hoping to practice my bullshit. Apparently they needed a free ticket into the Church of Aisling, so it all worked out. The High Priest could have just saved me the trip.

Of course, things weren’t so simple. We were stopped by the godsfucking Chancellor himself. He made a casual offer of treason in which we were miraculously not all killed. Apparently the Kalbs (and Cinnamon?) are under a Geas by the rumored-to-be-mad King.

Taking his hand, I saw the Chancellor’s death. Blood and tar. My companions guessed at a subtle enchantment or black alchemy that has taken hold over him. All the threads of his life lead to his death. Something we brought forward to the High Priest of my Church. A tentative thread, but more than what we had before to find the Enemy.

I end this journal while performing an exorcism of Raisa. First time I’ve seen Akhlut show his fangs this far north. Helping Raisa channel her chained god probably broke several divine regulations. Good thing we are in the Church of Aisling.

There is a big fucking black w

Having obtained the assistance of the hemi-demi-avatar of Caillech we were perhaps a bit too confident in our victory over the wizardy foes whom we knew to be between us and the end of our labors. The wizard’s trick with the zombie was quite unfair, if clever. I’m sure they turn all their fallen into cannon fodder. Damned wizards. The trinkets from the cursed green armored ones came in quite handy in the battle, but I’m still wary. It’s too bad about the guard, he acquitted himself quite well, and that didn’t look like a good way to go. Not that any way is probably a good way to go. Well… anyway, back to the topic at hand. I am most intrigued by whatever it was that was summoned with a powerful necromantic spell. Most intriguing. And deadly. Luckily for us, as it took out the most annoying of their number, martially trained woman who focused on defensive magics.

Most Annoying. The look of astonishment as she was disappearing was gratifying, even if I didn’t have anything to do with it. One of their number surrendered to us, but was revealed to be merely controlling the shell from a great distance, and therefore useless as a prisoner, so our kind sister removed the shell’s head.

The Avatarling, Avatar-ette? The little girl put us on our way, and revealed that the doorway which looked blocked would open for us upon the place we needed to go, so we closed and reopened the door and lo and behold, there was a pedestal and a room filled with loose energy. Also broken toys of the maker.

We replaced the capstone upon the pedestal, and reopened the door, and were reunited with the guards we had left behind some time ago on the other side of the chasm. A joyous reunion! We decided perhaps it would be best to remove the builder’s broken toys from the room of the capstone and so we did.

Thence, we returned to the surface.

Upon arriving once again to the bright light of the surface, it was determined that we should visit the High Necromancer, as she was right there, to explain the loss of her artifacts and to bring the bodies of the fallen to be interred. Upon arrival we were given the brush off by an acolyte, but after we gave him our message, he understood that he should not have done so, and got the High Necromancer for us. There followed a fairly long and detailed telling of our adventures to her, and we agreed to return in a few days to seek her counsel.

[Notes, to hopefully be filled in later]

Epic Wizard Battle!
Doors opened to a scratched wall.
Close, open, to room where seal should be.
Dead Builder-constructs in a pile.
We began to place the seal, and Raisa tried to dedicate it to Akhlut.
Cinnamon punched Raisa before I had a chance; Raisa just laughed.
We placed the seal, then re-opened the doors, this time to the shed we’d left our guards at.
Rested, collected the guards, and returned to the surface.
Debriefed with Lillian. She asked to see my memories, and was very distracted afterwards.

>> Things are Afoot. <<

“Find me in 2-4 days time.” (pause) “Make it 5.”

She wandered off distracted, bumped into door on the way out.

[/notes]

As we approached the Temple, I looked for traps, but didn’t see anything, so we stepped across red sign circle onto the white flagstones, and started the cart up the Path of the Dead ramp. The doorway looked like it had once been very large and impressive, but was just an open hole.

There was a large-ish circular indoor courtyard inside, with a hitching fence to one side, and a space that had probably been a garden in the center, with a statue of a woman with her head bowed. The courtyard was illuminated by a faint blue glow.

There was a door ahead and to the right with a dock in front of it for a casket. It was stuck, but we got it open, and saw a wide, simple hallway extending into the gloom. About ½ way down it looked like there was an open area, and another door about 60 feet ahead.

Everyone else started shimmying the cart up onto the dock area, and I headed down the hallway to scout it out. There was an open area partway down, which turned out to be a well-appointed waiting room, in really, really good shape. I mean, there was some decay, but not nearly as much as everything else, especially given rotted front door. Also, no dust. There was a carafe on the table, with steam rising out of it, and a plate of spicy appetizers. Interestingly, the number of plates and cups exactly matched the number of living people in our party.

Looking more closely at the furniture, I realized that it had been actively maintained in good shape – pieces of furniture had been cannibalized to make “new” looking pieces. And then I saw a door hidden, a servant’s door, over on one wall. It had your standard small device with the bell on it that rings when the door opens. I figured it would be boorish to intrude, so I let it be.

And then… the food changed when I was thinking about bacon. Byron had come up by that point to join me, and you know Byron, he ate it without hesitation. It seemed to do him no harm, and it smelled delicious so I tried a bit — it was actually really good. When Byron started thinking about bacon-wrapped scallops, I saw a small dumbwaiter window open beyond him, and a plate of hot ones floated out and came to rest on the table behind Byron.

Well… good servants aren’t supposed to be seen. That’s a damn good servant.

By this point the rest of them had managed to wrestle the cart up to the hallway. Raisa didn’t think it really made sense, given that priests of Calleich are known for making really bad sandwiches. Jake wished for turkey legs with gravy, and in a few seconds, a plate of them floated out. Raisa wished for meat on a stick, which took about 2 minutes — it wasn’t quite right like our own lost and lamented unidentified-meat-on-a-stick-guy’s meat, but it was better than most wannabe vendors can do.

After stuffing our faces full of delicious (safe, but non-nutritive, said Lady C) food, we eventually we remembered that there was a door at the end of the hall. It was about 8 feet wide, and showed signs of having been forced open from this side with a crowbar. We opened the door to find an oval shaped room, bowl-like, with a large raised area in the center featuring a large block of white granite, with another door on the far side. It looked to be a place for funerals, with the body of the departed on the granite slab in the middle. The room was filled with benches, which were suffering from rot – intact, and in better condition than wood in rest of city, but still decomposing.

Immediately in front of door was a small pile of … metal? bits and pieces… heavily rusted… armor? There were no apparent traps to have killed someone there. The door was rigged to close slowly and quietly, but that makes sense, given the purpose of the room. The metal closer to the door was more rusted than the bits further away from door. All of the other decay and rust in the room was equivalent, so this pile was unusual. Bastian said the metal closer to us looked 10 years more corroded than metal closer to the center of the room. After more investigation we figured that it was a suit of armor – a child, or a hafling, dwarf, or gnome. It had been well-made at one point, according to Bastian.

Cinnamon started toward the center of the room toward the door on the far side, and one step in froze, caught in time bubble. Suddenly what happened to the little guy in the armor became clear – the armor bits inside the bubble had aged more slowly. The odds of making it across the room in time to do any good with the seal seemed vanishingly small, so we had to get Cinnamon back. I tied a lariat with a bit of rope, and tried to catch her. It took 4 tries, but then the loop settled slowly – creepily – down around her shoulders. It took about 20 minutes to get her out. The rope disintegrated, and Cinnamon found herself suddenly hungry, although she didn’t remember any time passing.

We realized we couldn’t get any further on the Path of the Dead, so we loaded up on bacon from the invisible servitor, and went to try the path of the Seeker.

Inclined to gorge myself on bacon, I was a gentleman and let Cinnamon and Chip eat first. I packed up some sandwiches to take with us – Lady C said they’d probably only last a matter of hours, but hey, they were tasty in the meantime.

We headed back outside the hallway. It took awhile to get the cart back down from the ledge in the courtyard, and then we wrestled the cart back up to the path of the Seeker. This path had a stone door. I looked, but didn’t see any traps.

Raisa opened the door, since she had the Gaze.

Inside, there was a room full of rubble, heavily rotted wood, stone… table tops? So much rubble that it was hard to tell what the room was supposed to be. There was a wood and iron door across the way, so we cleared a path for the cart, and were just barely able to squeeze the cart through.

On the other side of the door was… a mess. It had once clearly been grand and beautiful, but… now it was destroyed. Carved columns were either completely destroyed or heavily defaced. The ceiling mural looked like it had once been brightly colored, but now was mostly scorched. There was a dais in the center of the room, and several steps lead to a raised door area in the far wall. The door in the far wall had been blasted by something – there was a jagged gaping hole in the wall instead of a door. Obviously there had been a fight in the room – Byron kept on talking about what kind of powerful magics could do the things we were seeing. The door/hole had parts that looked smooth-bored, some looked percussively punched out, and other parts looked exploded, scorched, and jagged.

The columns appeared to be damaged in similar styles as ways the wall. The damage seemed to be too concentrated on columns to be random. They had scrollwork which depicted gravestones and Calleich’s face, each column basically the same. The area between 3 and 5 feet high on each column damaged. Most of the ones still intact were closest to the first door, furthest from the hole. Byron said it looked like powerful magic – force punch, disintegrate. He didn’t think they wanted to collapse the column, could have disintegrated the top and bottom and pushed the middle out. We didn’t linger to puzzle on the columns much longer.

Through the hole we could see a simple room on the other side. There were three archways, although they were hard to focus on. There was lots of blood on the floor, and a blood trail on the floor to a corner where there was a large pool of dried blood – Raisa said it was maybe a week old. There were bootprints of blood going to all three arches, but all of us started getting headaches trying to focus when we tried to figure what order they’d gone in. Once we entered the room, it grew less unfocused. It was very plain, really, no interesting features except the arches. And the blood trail, of course. It seemed like something humanoid had bled heavily in the corner, then stood and walked through all of the arches with others. There were more than three sets of two different sizes of footprints – at least 10 folks, said Byron. Some were burly, some were smaller-framed, but not tiny.

When we were closer, we could see that the blood trail had gone into the left-hand (red) archway first.

The opening of the left hand archway glowed faintly deep red, and there was a sound like a drumbeat or a very slow heartbeat.

The middle archway was lit evenly with a soft silvery blue light – the same color as vault wards, we realized.

The archway to the right was bright golden color that flickerd like a candle out of the corner of the eye. There was a faint scent of incense.

We realized that the three arches were like the three pieces of the seal – the one drawn in Raisa’s blood, the original piece, and the gold divination light that we’d used to find it at the Builder’s The seal had been separated out with methods that meshed with the nature of the seal — but C didn’t think we should try to separate it out again, given how difficult it was to put it back together the pieces we’d had..

[[ In recap, the Builder built a version to study it – he’d given it up because he had what he needed from it – and said he had left his mark on the city and the world. ]]

It seemed like the center blue gate was the most logical place for the seal’s rightful place to be, so we tried that one first. It started out normal, about 10 feet wide, then got rougher and more natural as we progressed, more winding, like a cavern that had been partially worked. The floors were smooth, but the walls were not.

We came around a corner, and found ourselves almost face-to-face with what looked like a little girl, about 10 years old, dressed in formal clothing, ready for morning tea. She had stringy black hair, and her irisies were completely black, deeper than they should have been, almost like pits. She was holding a stick in one hand, and waved it at us threateningly, telling us to get back.

We tried talking with her, but she said she didn’t want us to be nice.

Byron said we wanted to return something, and she replied that she hadn’t lost anything.

Raisa played jacks with her.

Then the little girl got the idea that we’d stolen the seal, and started beating on Byron with her stick. Around then we saw that the area behind her had a hopscotch court and a fuckload of blood, with at least two bodies. None of that seemed to concern her.

I gave her a ham sandwich — she didn’t want the crusts, so I broke them off for her.

She said she’d let us pass if we swore on Mr Bunny:

“I swear hereby on Mr Bunny that we did not steal the seal.
I swear hereby on Mr Bunny that we’re trying to return it to its rightful place.
And terrible pain if we’re lying.

She told us she didn’t usually play there, but had come there “because it was broken – the whole place.”

She told us to watch out for the fast runners – they’d tried to shoot her with stuff. It sounded like she’d been playing hopscotch, some people ran past her really quickly, and she’d gotten two of them. One looked to be bludgeoned to death, and the other’s chest cavity was exploded. The bodies were less than a day old.

She said “If you see the liar, tell him he’s a poopyhead.” – apparently the Builder?

We asked her name, and she said “I don’t have a name, don’t be silly.”

She glared at most of us, but never at Raisa – maybe because she held the Gaze… or maybe because she was the closest thing to her aspect.

The floor transitioned to street cobblestones… in a cave… A short ways thereafter, we began to hear an argument between two women and a man. I started to sneak up to hear a bit more of what they were saying, but I didn’t get far before the man’s voice said “what was that?” There was a woosh, the smell of sulfur, and the sound of something clangy heading in my direction. I scuttled backwards. The clangs came about halfway to where I was, paused in a long silence, then turned and clanged back.

Two minutes later, the conversation started up again, but too far away to hear. Byron said the scent of sulfur was conjuration from another plane – like summoning an… interdimensional suit of armor…?

We discussed the little girl, then. Callech is too far removed by her nature to be able to interact with the world logically, so goes by vagueness and emotion. She can’t have avatars because of that, so just has limited servants – essentially avatars of specific aspects of her. Byron said that the little girl wasn’t a guardian, because she wasn’t doing a great job of guarding – which meant that she was acting outside of her domain.

Gaze – a reference to Calleich’s work with the watchers – looking into the unknown and preparing for something.

Raisa went back and had tea with the little girl, and somehow convinced “Mr Bunny” to come on a daring adventure with us. The girl came along with her bunny, telling us that “Mr Bunny is a bad influence.” Lady C was definitely avoidant of little girl.

Raisa and the girl went hopping down the hall, and we followed them.

As the lit pebble went skittering across the floor of the crater, there were… memories. In the reflections. Unsettling. I saw myself cutting Seal, over and over and over, able to see my own face and hard eyes as I did. Young Ivan and Fyodor laughing at me after they’d knocked me down as a kid. Adult Ivan and Fyodor facing off outside Averton, each with armed men backing them. Reflections upon reflections, each following the next. Sinking into oblivion after a long night of revelry. Father’s eyes, desperate and helpless as he talked to me a few weeks ago.

Eventually the rock tumbled to a stop, and we all shook ourselves out of whatever we’d seen. Cinnamon was visibly shaken, although I think we all felt uneasy. Thinking it through, she’s probably got awfuler memories than the rest of us.

We continued forward on the catwalk, which Bastian said was new, but it was corroded. Lady C said it was aging at an accelerated pace. Up ahead, at an intersection of catwalks, we could see a figure rocking back and forth. Her back was to us, and her long blond hair was matted with blood and dirt. As we got closer we realized that she was the elf who’d run away from us — the one that Raisa hadn’t been able to see before. Raisa could see her now, though. So was it the same elf, or was the other an apparition of some sort? Or was this one an apparition? Down here, who the hell knows?

The elf’s arm was in a sling, cradled as if she was injured. Raisa called out to her, and she turned slowly, favoring one of her legs, and we could see that her whole arm was chewed up really badly. The elf said she’d been “writing, trying to warn people about the music”. Writing… apparently in her own blood, grinding her hand down to a stump. Lovely image. She said the music was inside her now, and didn’t want to go away. Raisa tried to heal her, which fixed her face and leg, but not the hand. The elf never stopped moving.

Suddenly there was a rush of cold, which sapped the energy out of all of us. The whole metal structure we were on shuddered, and we heard keening howls in various directions. A gout of flame erupted to the right of us, outside the crater. We noticed that our Dead guard was now much Deader. No idea what happened there, but it didn’t seem to have been a Good Thing.

The elf said her name was Annalise. She still danced. Was the dancing keeping her alive? We considered knocking her out, which might stop her dancing, but it might kill her, or — worse(?) it might let the music out. We had no idea what that might mean or what it might do, but consensus was that The Music was a Bad Thing.

Lady C said that Annalise seemed preserved in some unnatural manner. In the end we didn’t have a good solution, so we left Annalise there. Still dancing.

We headed down the next walkway. It was buckled and warped, although some metal sheets had been put down to help ease some of the bumps. We reached the crater’s edge, and continued back into the tall streets of the city.

After a time, I got the sensation of being watched, first to one side, then another… and then it felt like it was all around, including behind us.

We saw a naked dwarf skitter quickly across the road, faster than dwarves move. Cinnamon saw a mostly-naked orc, and we realized that we were being watched by a multi-racial gang of skin thieves. A mostly-naked one at that. Seriously, if there’s anything worse than a horde of skin thieves, it’s one coming at you dangling and bouncing bits of them you don’t ever need to have seen. You can’t erase that kind of memory. It’s scarring. My eyes cannot forget.

After a short ways, Francis stopped and said “they’re driving us.”

Byron tossed a lighted rock to try to get the lay of the land. There was a weird halo aftereffect. Raisa did the same in the other direction, and there was also movement there. Round about then, Byron turned into a … bugbear-elf…? The fuck? And then he got poisoned with a fast-acting version of that weaponized Takara crap, and he was temporarily cut off from magic.

The skin-thieves started getting right up to the edge of the light.

And then there was this Nonchalant guy, watching.

Lots of skin thieves. And….Torvik golem saved our bacon. Byron turned back to himself, but he was still cut off from magic.

Our old pal Nirgle came, and drew some symbols that made things Bad, then left into the darkness.

We killed Mr Nonchalant. Raisa’s lips were sealed shut; C cut them. If I hadn’t already seen Annalise’s bloody arm stump and a horde of underclothed skin thieves, seeing someone cut my little sister a ragged gash of a mouth might have been the most hideous thing I’d seen that day. As it was — well I knew it had to be done, and Raisa was all steely-eyed brave about it, but it was hard not to feel protective of her. We had to walk a ways before we could heal her, and she just dripped blood from those mouth-flaps the whole way. We passed the remains of an ambush as we were walking.

Finally, we found Calleich’s temple. Surprise, surprise – there were red warning signs all around. We didn’t take much time to look closely, because all of us needed to rest.

When we woke, we were still outside the temple, which all in all was in fairly good shape, solidly built. There was a forest of red signs in a circle around it, where the paving stones changed from the street stones to the temple’s paving stones. There were three main entrances, all up slightly from the street. The middle one had a ramp, that our cart could get up, the others had stairs, with some debris on them. Path of the Living, path of the Dead, path of the Seeker.

Our dead guard was still on the cart, starting to smell, because in the cavern he suddenly seemed to decompose a few days.

Raisa cast a remove curse spell on Byron, which seemed to make him feel a lot better. Lady C made coffee in celebration, which made all of us feel better… and made the dry rations a lot tastier.

So we fought the freaky sew-together-skins skin thief – I’m not sure he was the same kind of … thing … as the other skin theives. His eyes were just red, no pupils or anything. When his skin came off he was just muscles, held together by blood vessels. He bled, a lot. We slept, healed up, and left one healthy guard with the 2 injured ones. We went back past burning house, back to middle road, which was narrower and more windy.

There was the sound of a woman crying ahead, and we saw a disheveled Elvish woman crouching, her arm in a sling, standing over another elf on the ground, who was matted in blood and seemed dead. Raisa didn’t see either of them.

And then there was a white octopus on the ceiling that spoke in Cinnamon’s voice, saying “let’s go”.

Yup.

Moving on.

We got to a HUGE cavern, couldn’t even see the roof. There was a big building with a campfire and mug sign in front of it, leaning at steep angle against neighbor, but it looked secure. There were large scale doors with wooden ramps leading up for wagons. Looked like there had been a bar fight around 2 weeks ago (around the time of the earthquake) There was scattered food on ground, and lots of rats.

We saw 3 figures with drawn weapons leaning against far door. On closer inspection, they’d been killed by poison… skin thieves? Francis knew one of them – the orc – he’d beeen one of the ones who had briefed Francis on what to expect in the Slag. Cinnamon did a thing to rest his spirit.

We went into the building – very briefly – to grab the magical lights inside. There was the stench of blood inside, and most likely a pile of bodies behind the bar – we didn’t look; no point. Blood was dripping down the stairs – it looked like there had been a slaughterfest. Bastian said the rats smelled like disease, that they weren’t normal.

On the other side of the gatehouse building there was less rubble and fewer buildings. We headed down the maim path. The road was more winding – the area seemed to have been “mined”, and the road went to every lot. Not a lot left there, mostly broken down.

We passed some rickety wicker contraption, suspended from spindly metal legs. Lady C and Byron were all interested in the alchemical silver the legs were made from, and Byron started pondering the wicker’s flammability, but it really didn’t seem that important to me. Raisa and I tried to get them to stop staring at it, and eventually they came along.

The path started to go down a hill. There was a rope bridge, which looked new. There was what looked like an apartment building, sunken, across from us – the bridge went across to its 6th floor directly across from us. Although the bridge was new, there was a gash in rope, which Byron mended before we crossed. When we were ½ way across the bridge, a wild-eyed man wearing 3 layers of plate mail shouted at us through the window, then disappeared.

Inside, the walls were knocked down. We entered an armory – all the weapons and armor were emblazoned with the same coat of arms – not one I immediately recognized, a broken sword and bloody axe, parallel, with a sun or moon in background. Not a noble coat of arms. They looked new, and well-maintained. Francis said that this had been one of the companies of mercenaries sent down here by the king post-quake to try to secure the area. There had been 3 or 4 other companies – all disappeared now. They were setting up independent command structures – Francis said they threw a lot of engineers at the problem.

The next room was a generic supply center. And the next room: bunks. All full of dead people. They were all fit, men at arms, looked like they’ve been dead 1 or 2 weeks. Look a bit shriveled, all look horrified, but eyes are all closed. The next room was another barracks, with exactly the same thing – about 30 dead between the two rooms.

A ramp of packed earth lead down, seemed to spiral the building down, which was convenient for our cart. We continued down to the 2nd floor, where there were more dead folk – this time with signs that the people had been awake while they died. They all still seemed horrified, and still had that dessicated sunken shriveled look. We continued down to 1st floor, which was notably different, in that the dead were all lined up very organized, almost a grid formation, as if they were getting ready for inspection, and every one of them seemed to have driven sword through his own mouth.

Like the dude who spiked his eye two days ago.

Outside, we looked and saw a queasy spiderweb of canyons. It was larger than the space it took up should allow, and seemed to change every time you let your eyes follow the maze. Just looking at it gave me a headache.

Byron gnawed on his stick, in a gesture of prayer to Gelt for assistance. We heard a wet schlorping sound from behind us. All of us, in whatever direction we turned. We figured that was some sort of Gelt-y sign – optimistic thinking – and started into the canyons.

…And then, everything went bonkers – the rock was my mother… Bastian later said he’d felt the same thing. We stopped – and suddenly, before any of us knew what was happening, one of the guards spiked himself through the mouth with his sword. Another tried the same thing at the same time, but Cinnamon was able to stop him.

Then we heard a new noise – from the stone and walls of the canyon – and the words were pitched just too low to hear. We’d been walking for a long time, and were all getting tired. Lady C had a stimulant – [-5 HP, -2 CON, +10 to Perception +1 to Reflex] – she said it would last 10 hours, with no fatigue. Cinnamon and I gave it a try.

We eventually found our way out of the maze, up…. onto the wrong side of the cavern. There was a carved spiral pillar above us, but not much else we could see. I was hyped up on Lady C’s potion and so took first watch. Crashed out after a few hours, but I didn’t sleep well — none ov us did.

When we got up, the schlorping sound had moved to in front of us. Byron suggested that we walk backwards, to get out the other side.

Okay, my bad, but I peeked. So did Bastian. And we got lost when everyone else made it out okay. Somehow we ended up being led along by a creepy rock-thing, even though we’d thought we were all still tied together. We got away from it and heard the rest of them all yelling to us, from … everywhere.

Short of other options, I decided to drink with Bastian, pray to Marius, and hope for a miracle. We got stinking drunk, wandered, and – miraculously – made it out, praise Marius.

We slept, and rested. When we continued upon waking, we come upon the Crater. It was huge, an egg shape, glossy black. Light reflected… wrong, like movement out of the corner of the eye. There was an iron stairway leading down into crater. (Apparently the iron was new, 2 years, and very weak, seems fire-weakened according to Bastian.) The handrails were wrapped in cracked leather and canvas, probably because of the heat.

Byron threw a light pebble into the crater, and it skittered, and the light reflected… oddly…