Narrative

Day 6 began on 21st Dec at about 1:00 inside the observatory. The next room looked like a teleportation circle, with a bronze feather on the circle. It resembled another feather the party had seen but seemed more powerful than usual.

Beyond it, the party found cages, now empty, an empty operating table, boxes, a guillotine, rope, and lots of blood and decay with smells of sea and sulphur. Behind a red door was a picture of a young tiefling whom Dirk recognised, holding [unclear]. A big table was set but empty. The door at the end led to a kitchen. Its well bucket did not look used. When the party pulled the bucket up and poured water on the floor, they found a humanoid skull with horns. The horns matched [unclear, likely the tiefling].

In an office, the party found a trapdoor under a bear rug. The outside office door was barred shut. Down the trapdoor were four plinths, each holding suits of Core. When Geldrin went down, the suits lit up and asked for a password. “Joy” and “Tri-moon” were incorrect. The party moved on and tried to get through a barricaded door, eventually managing to get through a trapped door.

In a potion room, a cauldron appeared full of fresh, clear water. Geldrin called a construct “Power loader.” Another room contained stairs and a door labelled “maintenance do not enter.” The door was trapped with electricity, and the building seemed protected by the same substance or force as the Barrier. Opposite was a bedroom with a tankard, a vase holding a white flower, a broken chair, and an open book on a table that seemed out of place. When they opened a chest, a pulse paralysed Invar and Geldrin at about 01:15.

A construct killed whoever had been upstairs [one of them], and the party killed the construct. The shock from the fight brought Invar and Geldrin back from paralysis. Three sets of footsteps walked past the room and stopped. Two came back and seemed to be on guard. Another two went to Joy’s room and came back. The party killed all four and completed a short rest. They entered Joy’s room and opened the toy chest.

Joy’s room contained a mahogany box with a rune on the lock, which Geldrin took. In the wardrobe were three empty hangers; the dress Joy had been wearing when Dirk saw her was not there. The bottom drawer of the bedside table was trapped. It contained medical equipment, a syringe, crystals, ash from a used spell scroll, powder, a bag, herbs, an empty vial or flask, and three full flasks. Two were recognised as Mirth’s Fizzleswig and succour, while the third was unknown. There was also a quill pen, ink, and a child’s diary.

The diary’s last page read: “Pelt rough today. don’t know how much Longer able to write, Daddy Borrowed mr snuffles again, daddy’s friend asked about the rings again daddy’s friend is creepy.” The diary showed that Joy had been bed-bound for about a year. Robots cleaned and fed her. Daddy’s friend, never named, was making rings and putting something in a box that might help her feel better. Joy was not getting better and was terminal. Daddy became upset, but no payment could fix it.

Under another rug was a trapdoor with a wooden ladder down into a stone room containing a beanbag and toys, apparently a secret den. Dirk went to the beanbag and saw a little girl sitting there. She got up and said, “maybe I should go back up daddy can see me in my room.” She also said she was “feeling better glott because daddy’s creepy friend is here so I can hide” [uncertain wording], and “he’ll find me here u should go to my holy place.” The party went upstairs into a massive dome with a large golden spyglass. Crystals around the telescope broke the Barrier. Someone sat in a chair with their back to the party. Two eight-foot ugly, wiry humanoids were present. The chair-person looked like the creature the party had killed, but with all the parts opposite: a worm and dog-like creature were with it.

The being, Musher, had been asked to observe the Tri-moon and had no desire to fight. The party had killed his counterpart. He said the worm was useful and rare. He spoke of someone living there 900 years ago and of using townsfolk to attack the Barrier. He gave the party one of the brass feathers to communicate with the master for an audience: [your] horned mechanical hellraiser sphinx creature [uncertain wording]. The name Garadul was raised. The speaker asked, “Where is your army servant,” and spoke of using those people instead. It did not need to know what coordinates were required for triangulation, but needed to know where the army would strike next month so they could have freedom from the dome. Shifting the Barrier increased the flow, possibly enough for the fragment of the moon to destroy Grand Towers and destroy the dome. The being lived outside the Barrier. Its talk of freedom seemed partly true, but the phrase “freedom from the confines of everything” was odd.

The party asked what would happen if the creature did not obey the sphinx. It would find him because of the pact made in darkness or in sorrow; the creature looked forlorn, perhaps tied to finding Joy. They learned or stated that the Tri-moon is a crystal. The sphinx had been cast out for practicing unsavoury magic. The creature asked whether the party wished to join him. He was one cell [uncertain phrasing], trying to aid locations to attack. The party all agreed to clobber him. They killed them all, including the worm thing, which they suspected had mind-control powers.

Papers on the table contained calculus and notes on the Tri-moon. Books covered biology, incurable diseases, and poison. One poison, Slowbane, acted like a heavy metal and matched symptoms in Joy’s diary. The writer had written a paper on it. Slowbane was very rare because people cannot make it, though it appears on the black market. Shield pylon cities sometimes get a similar sickness, but because people get sick and then come to Goldenswell and start to recover, it has not been heavily investigated. The sickness may be the same colour as the shield crystal.

The party found a pile of goods: spices, wine, berries, parchment, platinum, gems, silk, soja digel [uncertain], and a viel/vial from Arvoreds [uncertain]. They had a book. They also found a magical copper dodecahedron. Invar identified it and discovered “spell faults!” [uncertain exact meaning]. Geldrin slept in Joy’s room and realised the lamp was a gem at about 3:30. The party took a long rest and levelled up, waking around 12:00.

The magical chest itself was designed to cast paralysis if someone other than him opened it [uncertain owner]. Invar tried to identify it and found it very magical. The party examined the skull in the kitchen. It had a deformity in the back of the skull and looked a year younger than Joy, about seven years old, and possibly 1,000 years old. [Dirk?] defeats [unclear]. The well went down about fifty feet to water. Library research showed that the observatory was built at the same time as the Barrier, in tandem with it, not as a meeting place. It was designed specifically to observe the moon. Caverns underneath were found, and the site was built for this purpose. The summoning circle was connected to different towns and cities to bring building materials, then supplies after the observatory was built.

The party sent a message to [bucsalik]: the townsfolk have memories, the creatures were slain, they were at the observatory, and there was a message from Geldrin for Grand Towers wizard Brownmity. They then checked the maintenance area and disarmed the door. The Barrier was directed locally around the observatory. They found an old blanket and pillow, both very decayed.

Earthwise, the party thought they had possibly found Joy’s other hiding place. Firewise, they found a locked trapdoor with no way to pick it; the handle felt hollow. Geldrin used shield crystal to open it. Stone steps descended far into darkness. Five lights ended at a door painted with white flowers. Solemn music filled the cavern. Water passing through the Barrier fizzed. A riverbank shrine held six gravestones, all marked “Joy,” all with everlasting flowers; one grave had been disturbed. The graves read: Joy, died in chamber; Joy, 3 years old, lung infection; Joy, 2 1/2, unknown complications; Joy, 5 years old, with nothing else written; Joy, 9 years old, died from poisoning; and Joy, 7 years old, birth defect, with bones off in the other and raised [uncertain wording].

Following the stream, the party passed rocky ground, roots, mushrooms, mildew, and then mushrooms that became much larger than they should be. After fifteen to twenty minutes, everything was larger than it should be, growing bigger toward a point. A massive butterfly flew past. At about 13:30, the party reached a lake with massive lily pads, frogs, and frog spawn. Something magical was in the centre of the lake. The party put something into the lake, but nothing happened [uncertain object]. At about 14:00, Geldrin tried to raft to the middle, fell off, and was rescued. The party gave up on the lake for the moment because they lacked a way to retrieve the magical thing in the middle.

Back at the observatory, the party kept circling. Where they thought the front door should be, it was not there. A rune was on the wall, and Geldrin copied it. Continuing around, even the original entrance was gone. Earthwise, the bed had changed into a flower bed and the Barrier was not there. Firewise, there was no trapdoor; instead, two statues stood a quarter of the way down each wall. One was Throngore, huge and muscular with two arms, four legs, two horns, and dead [unclear], described with dark goals [uncertain], crab claws, flesh-like taloned human-like hands, broken skin, and flame from one side. Throngore was identified as a god of destruction. The other statue was Igraine, a pregnant elven woman holding a rose and scythe, goddess of life and harvest, made of alabaster stone. Rhine was noted nearby [uncertain context]. Airwise, the wall looked as if it should have been the door, but there was no corridor.

The party retraced their path. The statues were the same. Earthwise, the flowers were now dead. Invar went around alone to the shrines and back, found things dead, then went back around and shouted for the others, but they did not hear him. Airwise, the runes were bleeding and seemed different: “Demon magic shit.” The blood hurt slightly when touched. Geldrin copied the runes. Invar collected some in a bowl and checked its acidity; it was slightly acidic and seemed to be real blood.

Firewise, the trapdoor was closed even though the party had left it open. This version was fully metal with the same lock as the other one. A metal ladder led down to a metal floor. Around the exterior of the room were eight glass chambers, six empty and two filled with viscous liquid and something inside. The six empty chambers suggested six boys [uncertain]. Books sat near a statue. The statue was a nondescript human figure with no sex features, one arm out and palm down to the floor. Dirk mentioned hanging his coat on it. Geldrin tried a ring on it and it fit perfectly; Dirk added his. The diary there seemed to be trying to perfect a clone spell and matched the Joys in the graves. Dirk checked one chamber and saw something inside. The rings began to glow slightly around 15:30.

The party went back up. Earthwise, there was no bed, but the Barrier split was there. Waterwise, the door was there with pipes and other mechanisms. Airwise, there was a triangular Barrier. Waterwise was the same place both ways [uncertain]. Geldrin managed to hold the book open, copied writing, and deciphered it as an illusion spell. He took the book, whose front had an eyeball on it. This was around 17:00.

The party went to look at the moon and opened Maiden’s Dew, a good wine. Through crystalline refraction, they saw the moon and a smaller fragment at the front. The fragment was separate and much closer than the moon, about halfway between the planet and moon, locked in sync with the moon’s position. The moon was closer than expected; the party thought it would take another 1,000 years. If more magic went through the shield pylons, however, it would speed up. The fragment was aimed to hit exactly between the pylons. This connected with conjunctions and some of the issues from the town crier. The Barrier started flashing and lighting up, as if something were activating it. The moon shard seemed to be coming closer with the attacks.

People, Factions, and Places Mentioned

Dirk, Geldrin, Invar, Joy, Joy’s father/Daddy, Daddy’s creepy friend, Pelt, Musher, Garadul [possible], horned mechanical hellraiser sphinx creature, Brownmity, [bucsalik], Core, Throngore, Igraine, Ennuyé/The Mage by implication, townsfolk, Grand Towers, Goldenswell, Arvoreds [uncertain], observatory, Barrier, shield pylons, Tri-moon, Joy’s room, Joy’s secret den, Joy’s holy place, maintenance area, kitchen, library, riverbank shrine, lake, caverns, and towns/cities connected by summoning circle.

Items, Rewards, and Resources

Important items and resources included a bronze feather, brass feather for communicating with the master, teleportation/summoning circle, cages, operating table, guillotine, rope, humanoid horned skull, Core suits on four plinths, fresh-water cauldron, trapped maintenance door, trapped magical chest, white flower, mahogany rune-locked box taken by Geldrin, medical equipment, syringe, crystals, used spell-scroll ash, powder, herbs, empty vial/flask, three full flasks including Mirth’s Fizzleswig and succour plus one unknown, quill, ink, Joy’s diary, golden spyglass, Barrier-breaking crystals, calculus and Tri-moon notes, books on biology, incurable diseases, poison, and Slowbane, spices, wine, berries, parchment, platinum, gems, silk, soja digel [uncertain], viel/vial from Arvoreds [uncertain], a book, magical copper dodecahedron, gem lamp, shield crystal used as a key, everlasting flowers, Maiden’s Dew wine, copied runes, blood from bleeding runes, clone-spell diary/book, eyeball-front illusion book taken by Geldrin, two rings placed on the statue, and the magical object in the centre of the giant lake.

Clues, Mysteries, and Open Threads

Joy appears to have died or been recreated multiple times, with six Joy graves and clone-spell research matching them. Joy’s illness may have been Slowbane poisoning, a rare heavy-metal-like poison found on the black market and possibly connected to shield crystal sickness near pylon cities. Joy’s father and an unnamed creepy friend were making rings, using boxes, and trying to save Joy when payment could not cure her. The rings refer to pacts, bargains, sorrow, darkness, souls, infinity, and bringing Joy back. The horned sphinx or Garadul-like master lives outside the Barrier or dome and seeks freedom from the dome or “freedom from the confines of everything.” The attacks on the Barrier and shield pylons may accelerate the Tri-moon shard’s fall. The Tri-moon is a crystal, and a smaller shard is halfway between the world and moon, synced with it. The observatory changes by direction: earthwise, firewise, airwise, and waterwise routes produce different rooms, runes, barriers, shrines, flowers, doors, and traps. The bleeding acidic runes, Throngore and Igraine statues, metal clone chamber, empty glass chambers, two filled chambers, glowing rings, giant lake object, disturbed Joy grave, and the exact identity of Daddy’s friend remain unresolved.