[IC] We are the Madness

[Eonas]

The Necronomicon, unholy grail of cultists and horrors alike. The legends tell it contains the secrets of the planes, spells to alter the webs beneath the multiverse. And, unsurprisingly, there are quite a few beings after it.

T'ial and Furcatis, after crawling through the material plane after the Necronomicon, find their paths converging in the forest of Burkar between the Great Ocean and an assortment of small (and frightened) villages. Terrible things breed in the shadows of those tall trees, people whisper, and perhaps they're right: for in Burkar lives 'Mister Moose' *, a hideous verminous creature that preys upon the lives of humans.

It's under a giant jagged rock that you meet, in one of Burkar's few clearings. There's an evil aura around that rock: not even insects approach it, and the clearing perpetually remains in a desolate silence extreme even compared to Burkar's normal stillness.

* Well, there goes the atmosphere.

[GuesssWho]

T'lal Gugtatlwis has pale blue skin and translucent hair. Making eye contact with her is painful, for her eyes swirl with colors outside the range of normal vision. A pair of slim blue tentacles thrash about, occasionally stopping to examine her surroundings. They hide under her robes when the uninitiated are about.

At the moment she is frowning at her fellow cultist with some asperity. "I somehow doubt that you have been Called here by the Book, as I have. Your skwidlizpoosh isn't krek enough for you to have been more than a tzutchlyng, it's not safe for you to be this close to it. I bet you've never even subsumed a town before."

[Plerumque]

Furcatis, having left areas of human occupation behind days ago, hasn't bothered to conceal the marks made upon him by those he supplicated for power. His skin and hair is bone-white, and his eyes burn red. Tears of ooze drip down his face and leak from the corner of his mouth, and his forked tongue flickers in his mouth as he speaks. "I assure you that you need not worry about that, friend. I have been blessed by the Great Old Ones themselves. The Dweller in the Lake has bestowed upon me knowledge that would drive you sane, and it is for his glory that I shall reclaim the Book. I shall save it from the heathen hands that would not appreciate the knowledge it contains," he says, eyeing the other cultist. Then, the tension goes out of his body, and he sighs, feeling the influence of Glaaki wane. "Now, if we can be done with this boorish posturing, perhaps we could focus on the objective at hand?"

[GuesssWho]

She laughs, a horrible sound, and nods. "True enough. I shall let you join me, then, as long as I may use the Book once you have read it.

"I have heard rumors that the book is currently in a nearby village, although I am not sure which one. Have you any ideas on that score?"

[Plerumque]

"I thought it might be in this forest, but what I've seen so far would seem to indicate a presence of a different kind. Let me consider the matter for a moment." As Furcatis thinks, the ooze secreting from his eyes and mouth flows faster, coursing down his face and spattering on the ground. Where it touches, the leaves on the forest floor shrivel and rot.

I'll make a Knowledge check to see if I can remember anything pertaining to the Necronomicon's current location. I'm assuming that would count as Planes, so [roll0]. If that doesn't work, I'll use one of Glaaki's granted abilities and manifest hypercognition to see what I can learn about this area.

[Eonas]

The Necronomicon, some tales suggest, dwells on a remote island somewhere in the Great Ocean. Others suggest it hides in the shadows of Burkar, somewhere below the earth, perhaps in a crypt of some kind, or a vast unearthly bed. There are any number of tales suggesting the Necronomicon lies in other places - in temples, towers, catacombs, caves, plains, palaces, mountains, valleys, caves. Whether they claim the Necronomicon be under or over earth or water, or lodged in high celestial realms, each tale conflicts with each other tale. Perhaps this is for the better: if all tales were all in agreement, the location of the Necronomicon would be swarmed with cultists. However, for no distinctive reason apart from a hunch, you believe that the secrets of the Necronomicon are likely somewhere around Burkar, or just off the coast near it.

The rock reminds you of something you once heard whispered in a dingy tavern, from a decrepit hooded man: that at the dawn of mankind, elder beings inscribed a guide to the Necronomicon on colossal monoliths. Perhaps this is one of these monoliths: after all, it towers at least ten feet above you. And, come to think of it, you don't know how you arrived at this godforsaken silent glade: your passage through the trees to this place wound tortuously and disorientingly, so that if you tried to retrace your steps you would likely never find the place where you began. This, you realize, is the sort of glade one only stumbles upon by the most capricious decrees of chance or fate, the sort of glade that, once found, can never be found again.

[greenpotato]

Something can be felt observing you from the trees, but before you can wonder about a hidden observer the thing reveals itself. A great black chitinous insect leg that ends in a disturbingly hand like appendage pushes through the undergrowth, and then another, and then the head of the beast. A great crown of vicious horns festooned with human remains rises gracefully out of a squat mandibled head that leads to a broad and powerful thorax and abdomen. Its sort of like a beetle grown to massive proportions yet at the same time.. it's just so... not.

"Little men I thought you were, but then again I saw you wernt, but now I find something better, not to chew but to natter?" Its dozen beedy black eyes flick from one of you to the other and then it does a bizarre mockery of a curtsy with it's insectoid body.

[GuesssWho]

"Oh look, it's a moose-bug! Hello, bug-moose!" T'lal smiles up at the big beetle. "Are you looking for the Book of Dead Names as well?"

[greenpotato]

"The forest is in my care, the humans don't dare, and yet a trail, so I follow without fail, a book of names means little to me, for although I can speak I cant read you see?" It skitters a little closer into the clearing.
"All men are alike, and many I have tasted, ,I must know what you are, or this opportunity is wasted" it reaches a hand like appendage out but stops well short of touching T'lal "You are unlike any I have seen, what can this mean?"

[GuesssWho]

"I am a being of the realms Outside Creation, bound in mortal flesh and merged with the child who once owned it. The one beside me is a man who has read one too many books of forbidden knowledge, made deals with unspeakable godlings and mutilated his own flesh. From whence did you spring, elk-beetle?"

[greenpotato]

"So you are are three, where my eyes see two, I asked how can this be, and the truth shines through, although you look strange, and I was expecting much more, what you are is a change, mortal men are a chore"

"What I am is unknown, I awoke without peer, into this world I was thrown, and my nature isn't clear, all I know is that I am, for you your book I will aid, I will do what I can, perhaps this is the reason I was made?"

[Plerumque]

Furcatis peers curiously at this new arrival. "Indeed. Well, I am... very happy for you. You are searching for the Book as well?" He turns his gaze to the rock. "Perhaps this is our way. I heard once that monoliths much like these were placed to guide errant travelers to the same destination we seek. Then again, that rumor was spoken from the wine-stained lips of a man who should have been dead years before, so I cannot trust its veracity. Furthermore, what I know suggests the Book itself was created after the dawn of time, when these stones were rumored to be placed. Still, there is something about this place, something just slightly off... It's like a reflection in a mirror of the place it was meant to be: identical in every measurable aspect, yet not the same. And this is where you live?" He looks back to the beetle.

[greenpotato]

"This forest is my home, although this rock is unknown, I have know it was here, but not that is was more than it did appear, a purpose is not something I've had, I would join your quest and be glad, I only ask that my habits are mired, I want not hate to be by my actions sired"

[GuesssWho]

"Very little bothers me. I doubt if anything you do would count."

[Eonas]

As the insectoid creature enters into the clearing, something strange begins to occur. At first, it's too slight to notice, but soon it becomes overwhelmingly evident: the stone in the clearing begins to grently pulse, as if breathing very softly. Simultaneously, you feel the aura around it intensify, pulling your gazes towards it, almost against your will - and the area surrounding the clearing dims, like a theatre that dims its lights to direct its audience's gaze to the stage. You get the very strong impression that something wants you three to examine that strange stone, something alien and powerful.

Also, strange symbols begin to form on the rock, as if painted there by some invisible hand. They aren't primitive like runes, but rather intricate like hieroglyphs. Yet if these hieroglyphs depict anything, it doesn't seem to be anything immediately obvious or familiar.

[greenpotato]

"Though made of stone, it did just moan, a flash of light, approach I might" The giant insect approaches the rock, looking at the hieroglyphs does him no good, as mentioned earlier, he cannot read.

[Plerumque]

Furcatis creeps closer to the stele. "Curious..." He reaches out a trembling hand, then withdraws it abruptly without touching the object. With a whisper growing into a shout, he says, "No, no... Reveal to me your secrets!" He speaks a few frustrated syllables in Aklo, then wipes his brow with a sleeve. "Sorry, sorry... this object has aroused Glaaki's curiosity."

[GuesssWho]

"Perfectly understandable, I'm interested as well."

[Eonas]

A flash of realization hits Furcatis as he examines the writing on the stone: the symbols suddenly make sense. The text is in an archaic form of pre-Aklo poetry, which, roughly translated to Aklo and then very roughly translated again to Common, reads:

We are the madness beyond the night
Dream-carnivores, locust's delight
Seventy-nine thousand five hundred sixty-two
We are the pinnacles atop the sky
The compass' bane, the gale's lie
K'kathg'aguur Hmebvak Xruk'gyru
We are the vessel, you are the key
Turn inside out, unlock, set free
Beneath the gates of massacre
They are the madness beyond time
Unleash the deathless paradigm
Slumbers the destructive passenger
NECRONOMICON
NECRONOMICON
NECRONOMICON

As Furcatis reads, the three of you begin to feel sleep tugging at your minds. The trees outside the clearing bend inward as if bowing to the stone (or, perhaps, towards yourselves?), and a nimbus of hazy purplish light begins to form in the clearing.

[greenpotato]

"My eyes begin to close, a magic sleep, I suppose..."

[GuesssWho]

"Off to the dreamlands we go, then, I suppose."

[Plerumque]

"If that is their will, then it will be so, and I shall give myself willingly into the arms of sleep." Furcatis closes his eyes.

[Eonas]

The light overtakes you, growing thick and viscous about you, enveloping and stifling you in itself, until it seems more present than you, heavier than your increasingly insubstantial selves. As you surrender to sleep, you feel yourself falling weightlessly through nothingness. You don't know long you fall - for all you know, it might be hours, even days - but eventually you find yourself regaining weight and substance, until you all land together in a circular stone room.

You look around. The room is is large, but not so large that you cannot see its walls and ceiling. It's lit as if at dusk, but there is no visible light source - indeed, you don't seem to cast shadows here. There is a small, circular hole in the perfectly-hewn floor; it leads into utter blackness. At one side of the room there is a spiral staircase leading up through a similar circular hole in the room's ceiling.

You feel the room's agelessness: it's timeless, at once strangely beautiful and haunting in its circular simplicity. There are other beings that have set foot here, you somehow clearly know: perhaps great kings, or ghouls, or dream-travellers, or shoggoths. Perhaps they are here now, in some parallel reality or dimension.

[Plerumque]

"It seems we have been washed up on strange shores," says Furcatis, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "The invocation on the stone would make me think that this may be the resting place of the Necronomicon. Its mystery haunts me... we must plumb its depths. The only choice to make is up or down. I suspect we must make the choice in blindness, but that is no reason not to try." He withdraws an iron rod from among his possessions and strikes it on the ground, the golden cap flaring into light. Then he drops it into the hole in the ground, watching to see both if the illumination penetrates and if he can hear it strike ground.

[Eonas]

The light from the rod is swallowed up by the blackness as if in oil. You hear the rhythmic clattering of the rod falling what might be a flight of stairs for a few moments - and then the sound stops.

You sense the hole leads to a spiral flight of stairs.

[GuesssWho]

"I tingvak a staircase down here." And she carefully steps down onto it.

[Plerumque]

"Not as blind as I had feared, then. Well, down it will be. For the glory of Glaaki." Furcatis follows T'lal, attempting to mimic her footfalls exactly.

[greenpotato]

"So down we go, what will this darkness show" the giant insect chatters as it follows the others down

[Eonas]

The staircase descends for perhaps twenty feet before ending in a landing. It's slightly cooler down here, less still: the echoes of your footsteps still reverberate unevenly from the stairwell and the edges of the new chamber, and occasionally a bit of ice-cold breeze brushes past you. You can't help but feel that there are beings here, not in another dimension or reality but in this one, occupying the same space as you... and watching.

Like the first, this chamber is just small enough for you to sense its contours; unlike the first, it's irregular, its walls unpredictable and zig-zaggy. There seem to be eight exits at various places along the walls, and three sheep-sized pyramids arranged throughout the room.

[Plerumque]

"This place intrigues me," says Furcatis, staring into the darkness with blind eyes. "I can't seem to recall anything about any place like this, but perhaps the Dweller in the Lake has..." He mutters a quick invocation and makes a complex sign with his hands, drawing upon a sliver of the boundless knowledge of Glaaki to augment his own capacities.

[roll0]

Well. It seems Glaaki is not favoring me today.

[GuesssWho]

"I see and feel exits like an octopus's arms, with great rough walls and triune tiny pyramids." She steps closer to examine one.

Do the pyramids look like controls for something, or altars, or what?

[Eonas]

There are the realms of nightmare, where fantasies and realities collide in a hideous, tumultuous chaos. Between these and the dreamlands proper is the so-called 'Void', a watchful blackness that keeps nightmare and dream separate. This is, likely, a sort of anteroom of the Void.

You can't tell what the pyramids' purposes are - you'll have to roll a knowledge check for that - but the pyramids do seem orderly in a way that seems incongruous with the rest of the chamber.

[Plerumque]

"Ah. We are not yet in the lands of Dream, but rather in the realms of nightmare. Glaaki suspects that these rooms are some kind of intermediary, an adjunct to the Void which cleaves between the two. If we travel for long enough, we may pass through into the Dreamlands, but until then watch out for those that appear in your fever dreams... if, of course, either of you even has dreams. For now, should we pick an exit at random, or have you uncovered anything?" He speaks to T'lal.

[greenpotato]

"Men make strange patterns, this place is not a place but a thought, yet it is so wrought"

[GuesssWho]

"I know that the pyramids are in order unlike anything else in this chamber. Let me look a moment more."

I did the checks a while ago. Answer, please?

[Eonas]

Oh, sorry. I missed that.

Pyramids like these are the sentinels of order partially seperating the chaos of the Dreamlands and the chaos of the Nightmare Realms. The two frequently meet and flow into each other, of course, but the presence of the pyramids maintain a distinction. Without them, dream and nightmare would meld entirely, and... well, you don't know what would happen then. Probably very few beings do.

[GuesssWho]

"This is one of the borders between the Dreaming and the Nightmare, I believe. Without them dreams would be nightmares and nightmares dreams, and what happens then not even I know."

[Plerumque]

"Ah," Furcatis says. "Very interesting. I wish to inspect them further- I suspect few mortals other than myself have ever been granted the opportunity, and there is no sense in wasting such a gift. I wonder, however, if you might be willing to tarry a little longer. This darkness is stifling to me, yet I could call upon the sight of a greater being to part its veil. The Usurper, who grants the ability to feel the shadows, commands utter darkness for its invocation, and I have never seen darkness more complete than this. Were it not objectionable to you, companions, I could draw his seal here and remove my handicap."

[GuesssWho]

"As long as you don't do them harm, I care not."

[Plerumque]

"Very well, then. I will return to the light to release the sliver of the White God bound to me." Furcatis ascends the ladder into the antechamber, where he takes some chalk from among his possessions and begins to draw an intricate diagram on the floor. That done, he sits back and begins to chant softly, the language a pidgin of Aklo, the binder-tongue, and words of his own devising. Part of the way through, a wind begins to whip around the inside of the circle. Furcatis continues to chant as it grows, stretching upwards into a cyclone of wind, snow, and hail. None of it penetrates beyond the edge of the seal, despite how the manifestion howls and beats itself against the circle of its imprisonment. Finally, Furcatis ends the chant with a hard, guttural word, and the storm vanishes. As soon as it's gone, he feels an emptiness, and mechanically smudges out the lines. Then, he returns back below to his companions. "Close your eyes," he instructs tersely, and begins to draw another circle, remembering the practiced gestures. This time he cannot see if there are any gaps in the lines, and he is forced to trust his abilities. Glaaki guide my hand he thinks, and begins to chant again in the bastard tongue, until he is drowned out by dreadful slithering, rasping and flapping noises from within the circle, and the choking stench of carrion begins to waft through the room.

I'm assuming it's okay to narrate all this myself, for the sake of expediency. If something would have prevented me from doing all this, feel free to stop me and have me edit the post.

[roll0]

Furcatis' words take on a wheedling tone, and the entity within replies in the same language. After a few moments of discussion, a consensus appears to be reached, and the smell of decaying flesh fades away along with the noises from the circle. Furcatis mops his brow with a sleeve, and calls out, "You can open your eyes now." He does so himself, but also opens the sense newly granted to him by the Usurper, and feels the darkness on his skin. He makes his way over to one of the pyramids and touches it, tracing his fingers over it to search for any markings.

[GuesssWho]

She opens her eyes--the normal ones and a few half-blind things placed at random on her skin. "That was certainly interesting."

[Eonas]

As Furcatis ascends the ladder, he sees an thin tendril of undulating shadow follow him up, its flat, floor-hugging form almost lapping at his heels as he traces the circle. It retreats before him as he descends, hiding itself in the darkness like a drop of water in the ocean.

You feel the sheep-sized pyramid in the darkness, featureless and perfect. As you touch it, suddenly revelation surrounds you, engulfing you just like the darkness (perhaps it is the darkness). For a terrible, agonizing moment, it feels as though you are drowning in knowlege, unable to process any of it, choked by its vastness. And then, the feeling subsides and you are simply left in the darkness, feeling relieved and shivering...

Until you perceive them.

Three vile, monstrous parodies of form, creatures whose very presence spits upon three-dimensional space, whose every non-existent inch of non-matter is at once a maw, a claw, and a tentacle. They're remarkably close to you, perhaps twenty feet away. Their malice - if it is malice - is palpable, their approach towards you indisputable. These are not normal abominations, but abominations upon abomination.

(I'm going to roll a will save for you right here, privately, because the other players aren't supposed to know about the will save.) [roll0] (Failed.)

For some reason, you feel an irresistible urge to pretend (to yourself, and to others) that nothing is wrong, you have seen nothing, there aren't three hideous monsters approaching you with jaws agape.

[Plerumque]

"Well," Furcatis says, turning from the stone. "That was certainly interesting. I felt it- a flood of knowledge, as I touched the stone. It was beautiful, sovereign, untameable. It filled me and then it was gone, and I was grasping at sand as the tide rolled out- a more terrible feeling than ever I've known." He shivers in the memory. "But that was all. I still don't know what the purpose of these artifacts might be. Shall we choose an exit and move on?"

[GuesssWho]

"That would indeed be wisdom, I believe." And she follows him, tentacles waving gently.

[greenpotato]

"All clues gone, nothing here, lets move on"

[Plerumque]

"The only question is, which exit. Well, perhaps let fate decree." Furcatis takes a sheaf of thin objects from somewhere among his robes. They look like slender wands of ash, or perhaps the bones of a small animal. He casts them to the floor, and crouches over them, sensing the result in the darkness tracing patterns on his skin.

[roll0]

"Second exit it is, then," he says, scooping up the sticks and stowing them again, passing the exit closest to the stairway and pausing at the threshold of the second passage.

[Eonas]

As you walk towards the second exit, you see out of the corner of your eye that the monsters follow you in a chaotic and unpredictable lope. Soon they are near - you feel the ice-cold touch of their nails scratching against your skin. You cannot believe they exist! It must simply be the wind in this place, or an illusion! They cannot be real! They mustn't be!

(If you want to shatter your own disbelief, make a DC 18 will save.)

As you walk, you feel ice-cold gusts of wind brushing against you like whirlwinds, and you see Furcatis' clothes begin to shred - though you cannot sense what might be shredding them.

You feel ice-cold gusts of wind brushing against you like whirlwinds as you move towards the second exit, your antlers tingling with the irrepressible sense of horror around you.

[GuesssWho]

T'lal curls her tentacles around herself to fight the cold, and hides her hands in her pockets. "Something is eating your clothing, o Speaker for God-Scraps."

[Plerumque]

"I see!" Furcatis whirls around, stabbing a finger towards T'lal. "You're in on it too! Trying to drive me mad, make me think that these things with which you've fooled my senses are real. Well, I shan't fall for your ploy, deep one." He turns on his heel and strides to the threshold of the door, ignoring the phantoms dogging his step. "You did this so you could claim the Necronomicon for yourself, I see, without having to share its lore. Well, your plot is undone, but so long as you do not imagine you can fool me again, we may yet cooperate. Come."

[GuesssWho]

"If these illusions you claim were of my making, I would not be a-shiver with the cold. Either the cold's a booby-trap or we three aren't alone."

[Plerumque]

"I feel no cold," Furcatis frowns. "Well, perhaps we should leave this space. I do not fear the summoner of these spectres, if petty illusions and a slight chill are all they are capable of, but we have tarried long enough here already." His eyes dart back and forth, belying his air of unconcerned impatience.

[greenpotato]

The cold has little effect on the huge insect, but the bickering of his two companions cause a flicker of his antennae "As two you came saying three, a simple chill, and now to split to be alone like me?"

[Eonas]

The monsters' scratching worsens as you walk further into the chamber, tearing through your skin until it hurts.
For starters, you take [roll0] damage.
Furcatis' clothing tears further, then his skin. You're pretty sure you see drops of blood begin to trickle down his back and arms.

[Plerumque]

"Ah!" Furcatis flinches as one of the wraiths buries a claw in his back. "Whoever is using this trickery seems to take offense. Very well, whoever you are, I acknowledge you can cause pain." He speaks out into the cavern, voice echoing, then turns back to his companions. "You are right, insect. We should not be divided so easily. Come with me." He turns and begins to walk through the exit.

[GuesssWho]

She follows, frowning at the cuts. "What ghost or wraith or spell or blade does harm to ye, my dear?"

[Plerumque]

Furcatis swipes around him. "Ah, it is the figments our pursuer has summoned from the depths of my consciousness. I believe these wounds are likewise imaginary, but that doesn't mean they don't sting quite a lot."

[GuesssWho]

"Pain is just another thing we sense, in the end."

[Plerumque]

"This is true," Furcatis says, passing through the entrance. "Clearly, our puppet-master knows this as well."

[Eonas]

The passage beyond the exit zigzags wildly, and slopes upwards and downwards to such an extent that even gravity provides only rough indication of your orientation in space. It's long - you certainly don't see the exit after about a minute of walking.

The creatures now shatter the relative silence with their howls, the echoes bouncing off every wall irregularly, as if multiple copies of the monsters are scattered around the area. Their cold claws and teeth continue to tear at your skin - and soul: you feel your essence raw against their frigid assault.

You take [roll0] more damage.
Also, make a DC 16 Fort save or take a negative level.
You might also want to take that DC 18 Will save now to shatter your own disbelief.

Now the cold wind is unmistakable. It centers around Furcatis, howling and clawing at him - bits of his skin now literally fall off him, as if torn by some unseen force.

Now the cold wind is unmistakable - but now it centers around Furcatis, howling and shrieking.

[Plerumque]

Furcatis pauses to make a few complex signs over his breast, muttering invocations in several different tongues.

Using Evil's Blessing to add a +5 to both saves, if that's okay.

[roll0]
[roll1]

[GuesssWho]

T'lal's tentacles are starting to flail about with discomfort. She takes a few steps away from the cold.

[greenpotato]

"The cold focus on you, Furcatis, what did you do, to make the air anger so? Please now tell it that we just wish to go" Mister moose says as he takes a few clattering steps way from the epicenter of this chill wind assault.

[Plerumque]

Furcatis flinches and turns, revealing a gash torn in his clothing. Blood is welling up from a wound within. "I know not, my friends," he says. "I don't think it could be the monument I touched. Perhaps my ritual offended the sender of these shades?" He frowns in the darkness. "I do not know. Should we go back?"

[GuesssWho]

"It might be best to seek another way, if we cannot somehow fight these things."

[Plerumque]

Furcatis spits. "Fight them? Ah, that would be a fool's errand, for they are but hallucinations of a diseased mind, cast onto my own. It would be better to find whoever thinks they can prey upon me in such a fashion and convince them otherwise." He turns and calls out loudly, "Puppet-master! Manipulator of the strings! Call off your ravening shadows and face me! Unless you are too afraid of the powers I serve to dismiss your illusions..."

Knowledge check to see if I know of any magic that might cause this effect: [roll0] (+15 if it's Mythos-related).

[Eonas]

As if in response, the monsters howl louder, dancing around you to a daemoniac tune you cannot hear, clawing, biting, shredding, gashing, chipping away at your flesh and soul.

There is indeed ancient magic that can call off the monsters you face, but you don't know it, and likely it would begin to unravel this place like a scarf whose thread has been pulled. Perhaps in the Necronomicon this magic could be found, or in the Tome of Z'gur; this latter is reputedly still in the posession of a necromancer called Hargun.

More damage taken: [roll0]
Succeed a DC 18 Fort save to avoid taking a negative level, and you may also take a DC 19 Will Save to try and free yourself from the illusion.
As if in response to the cultist's demand, the wind howls louder, whipping around Furcatis like a ravenous tornado. He's bleeding heavily now from a thousand pores, and an agony deeper than pain registers clearly on his face.
As if in response to the cultist's demand, the wind howls louder. You feel it whipping around Furcatis like a ravenous tornado, insatiable and cold.

[Plerumque]

[roll0]
[roll1]

Blood soaking through his linen shirt, Furcatis staggers backwards. He raises an arm helplessly, shielding his eyes from the sight of the creatures surrounding him, but it doesn't help- the feeling of the darkness on his skin, the scent he can detect on his long, flickering tongue still confront him with the unholy visages he'd tried to escape through self-delusion. He falls to his knees in a combination of reverence and horror. "They're real..." he whispers. With that, he gets unsteadily to his feet and continues on, breaking into a lopsided run as he continues down the hallway. He reaches the central chamber and darts up the stairs, collapsing gasping in the lit antechamber and hoping the beasts do not follow him.

How many rounds has it been since the first attack?

[Eonas]

The wind howls after Furcatis as he runs. When Fucatis reaches the antechamber, the wind stops abruptly, but is replaced by three long, undulating, tendrils of shadow slink along the floor after him from the darkness, harmlessly lapping at his heel like the first had.
The wind howls after Furcatis as he runs. When Fucatis reaches the antechamber, the wind stops abruptly, but is replaced by three long, undulating, tendrils of shadow slink along the floor after him from the darkness, harmlessly lapping at his heel like the first had.
4 rounds. This is your fifth.
The creatures bound after Furcatis as he runs, continuing their assault. However, as soon as he makes it into the warm, bright, antechamber, they dissolve immediately: first they're monsters, then slap! Nothing. He does find three long, undulating, tendrils of shadow slink along the floor after him from the darkness, harmlessly lapping at his heel like the first had.

Damage: [roll0]
DC 20 Fort save or negative level.

[GuesssWho]

She follows him into the room, relieved that the angry wind is gone.

[greenpotato]

Mister Moose follows

[Plerumque]

[roll0]

Furcatis sits cross-legged in the antechamber, flinching when the tendrils of shadow brush past him despite their apparent harmlessness. He catches his breath for a few moments, watching as the blood spilled on the ground begins to slink back up into his wounds, which close on their own after a few minutes. He spends the time in silence, scratching complex sigils into the dust and wiping them away, over and over again. "Well," he finally says, voice strengthening as he continues. "That was... enlightening as to the nature of the fiends that may confront us in this perilous journey. May I advise that this time we take the route that goes up?"

[Eonas]

Once all three are in the room, the shadows on the floor waver. Suddenly, the three split - one aiming for Furcatis, one for T'lal, and one for Mister Moose - and attach themselves to the bases of your feet, like actual shadows.

[Plerumque]

Furcatis frowns. "How... interesting," he says, seeming to recover from his fear at the sight of new knowledge to obtain and catalogue. "I wonder if these are creatures or mere symptoms of this boundary-line." He takes a second sunrod from a pocket deep within his coat and strikes it on one of the walls, holding it at different angles to experiment with the effect on the shadow, then dropping it at his feet where the shadow is cast.

[Eonas]

No matter where Furcatis places the sunrod, the shadow doesn't grow or shrink, flicker or darken. In fact, the light from the sunrod produces a second, paler shadow. All the unnatural shadow does is follow Furcatis around, almost like a normal one.

[Plerumque]

Furcatis sighs and picks up the sunrod. "As I suspected. They are not bound by the constraints of normal light." He stows the rod back with his possessions, tip still blazing. "With luck, these shades are not harbingers of more of those-" he shudders "-beasts. Well, these at least seem to be harmless. Let us continue to seek our quest's end, and take the ascendant path." With only a quick glance back at his second shadow, he heads for the staircase and follows its serpentine coil into the stifling darkness beyond.

[GuesssWho]

"Be mindful of thy shadows, and remember to keep counting them." And with that unhelpful pronouncement, T'lal joins him on the stair.

[Eonas]

You and your shadows wind up the stairs for some time before reaching a very small room whose walls are apparently made of ivory, hardly large enough to comfortably fit you three (or, possibly, six). It's empty, low-celinged, and contains a tiny peephole to the outside.
The peephole looks out onto a phantasmagoric panorama. There are mountains floating upside down, trees whose roots rise out of the ground and intertwine in strange patterns, lakes whose surfaces reflect more than what actually sems to exist above ground. Snakelike birds the size of clouds slither in the orange-and-purple sky, flocks of butterflies like prismatic snapdragons flap through gigantic archways made of granite, and on the ground, leagues below your current vantage point, tiny figures move.

You see other and stranger things, of course - among them floating, ethereal pseudogeometrical shapes that don't quite seem to exist - but to describe them all would be at once linguistic suicide and so lengthy a process as to border on interminable. These are, at any rate, the most salient features.
There's an arch-shaped crack in one of the room's walls.

[Plerumque]

At the front of the line, Furcatis bows his head to look through the peephole, and remains glued to it for a few moments before separating himself. "What may be seen through this outer eye defies description; thus, I invite you to see for yourself." He steps away from the wall, further into the room.

[roll0]

[GuesssWho]

She looks, and grins hugely. "Ah, it's always nice to see a little taste of home."

[greenpotato]

After having a look Mister Mooses alien features contort into a strange expression "All I know is my trees, can I trust what my eye sees? Different lands full of the strange, it makes a nice change"

[roll0] Perception

[Plerumque]

"Perhaps you are right, O carapaced one. It may be that our eyes are not the senses we can trust. Thankfully, it is not the only one we are possessed of. " Furcatis leans over to the keyhole, and opens his mouth, and his long dark tongue flickers through the eyehole and tastes the air beyond with its forked tip.

[Eonas]

You feel your tongue go through, caressed by the warm air on the other side.

[Plerumque]

Furcatis' tongue flickers back, and he stands away with a grimace on his face. "If the sight is another trick, it's a very good one. Regardless, it does not seem that there is a way to proceed. I suppose we could return to the chamber belowstairs, and see if our new shadows protect us from the other shades."

[greenpotato]

"It is no trick, this stone and brick wall, I wonder how thick" and with that the huge insect slams into the wall with it's prodigious bulk.

Bite: [roll0][roll1]
Strength Check vs Break [roll2]

[Eonas]

You slam into the wall and find that it gives way as easily as a curtain. For a brief, euphoric moment, you're flying through the air, miles above the landscape you saw through the peep-hole; then you're falling; then you're awake in a barn. The cows around you are panicked and trying to get out (unsuccessfully, of course, because the only exit is a shut barn door).
For a brief instant you see Mister Moose crash through the wall with a satisfying crunch and a spray of stone shards, then all is as it was a moment ago (the wall is intact and the shards are nonexistent). Except that Mister Moose has apparently disappeared.
For a brief instant you see Mister Moose crash through the wall with a satisfying crunch and a spray of stones, then all is as it was a moment ago (the wall is intact and the shards are nonexistent). Except that Mister Moose has apparently disappeared.

[GuesssWho]

She sighs. "That may have been a bad plan.

". . . shall we repeat it?"

[Plerumque]

"I see no other way to catch up with our companion," Furcatis says, "although I lack the strength necessary to break through. What about you?"

[GuesssWho]

"I can try to beat it down with magic."

[Plerumque]

"It's better than what I have at hand. If you can perform the feat from range, perhaps we should stand well back and see what happens if there's no momentum to carry us through." Following his own advice, Furcatis presses his back against one wall of the small space- which seems much larger for the lack of Mister Moose.

[greenpotato]

Mister Mooses waits patiently for the others to appear for about thirty seconds, when they do not he calmly moves to the exit of the barn and opens it.

[Eonas]

Time in the 'real' world goes by quite a bit faster than in the dreamlands.

The door, as it turns out, is locked on the outside, but a quick slam against it splinters the door open without difficulty. On the outside is a farm, the epitome of quiet country life: you see a chicken coop, a sty full of pigs, a homestead, a farmer pointing at you and screaming mutely...

[Eonas]

When T'lal blasts a wall with a jet of water, it shatters, shards of stone spraying everywhere. Then all is as normal once again (the wall is intact and the shards are gone). The majority of the water has disappeared, but the floor and restored wall are both humid.

You both notice, suddenly, that as the wall restored, your shadows flickered threateningly.

[Plerumque]

"Shall we get closer and attempt to get through after another try?" Furcatis asks T'lal, bowing down and testing the floor's slickness with one finger before straightening back up.

[GuesssWho]

She nods and does so.

[greenpotato]

On seeing a shape that looks like his normal prey, a human peasant, Mister Moose springs into action. He rushes the man with his mandibles slavering and lunges for a savage bite.
[roll0] Initiative
[roll1] Attack [roll2]

[Eonas]

Your shadows once again flicker as the wall shatters open, but this time you hurl yourself through before it reforms. For a brief, exhilirating moment, you're falling from the top of a tower, down, down into the trees miles below you. Then you both wake up in a barn. The cows in the barn around you seem terrified, and the door of the barn is smashed open. In the peaceful farmhouse scene outside, you see Mister Moose mangling a farmer.
The farmer tries to run, but his legs don't seem to want to move. By the time he's started to recever, you've skittered over to him and are snapping off his limbs. He never even screams.

[Plerumque]

"Hail, friend," Furcatis calls. "Did that farmer say something to offend you? It seems odd that anyone should be so obtuse, but I have learned never to underestimate the stupidity of humanity." His shadowy tongue flickers around his teeth as he speaks.

[GuesssWho]

"Even fleas have smaller fleas that bite 'em, and so it goes ad infinitum." T'lal isn't sure why she said that, but it sounds good so she's sticking with it.