Everyone drinks enough, eats enough (doubly so for the bottomless pit that is the kid AKA Marigold Justice, Private Eye), and from start to finish you’ll only use up 4 rations. I believe Bran has 5 rations on him, so I’m taking 4 from him so we don’t have to dwell on that too much. At a later date you can share what you have evenly amongst yourselves. Bran has 1 ration remaining.
You arrive at the soft place in good time, it’s into the afternoon, but by the amulet’s assessment you’ll still have light as you reach the exit. You shaved about 2 hours off just by knowing how to traverse deserts properly Gisard! You are entitled to feel very well informed and leader-ish.
You don’t see any difference between the rest of the desert and here, which is worrying. Sir Krig is obviously the first to voice concerns (how he isn’t sweating in that armour amazes you, and perhaps gives you pause on his species), but the rest murmur about it too, and tensions flare.
The amulet around Gisard’s neck pulls this way and that, until at last it finds that perfect angle. It instructs Gisard to throw a rock at the empty air. It vanishes. The complaints stop.
Looks like you’re going to have to trust you’ll walk out onto safe ground. Fortunately, you do.
Bran, you and Lonestar have done a pretty good job scouting. He’s crass, disrespectful and you might even call him scum (and villainy) if you weren’t a thief yourself, but working with him wasn’t so bad. You’ve got a good feeling about this journey. Nothing surprises the parties.
Gisard, you’re the first through the soft place, then Sir Krig.
“I should go first into unknown territory scaled devil. I am the most powerful, it is only right.”, which might be ‘thank you’ where he’s from, “Remember that.”
Probably not though.
The rest come tumbling after in a line for fear of being left behind.
The amulet reveals the next one, then the next. You feet tingle as you pass through, and you all feel what might be described as jet lag if you knew what a jet was.
As you stumble through the last soft place you find yourselves in a shadowy complex.
Behind you is a massive semicircular wall of concrete higher than any structure you’ve yet witnessed.
In front of you is... right, let’s see. There’s this dip in the flat ground, and looking over you see metal tracks on a gravelled ground. There is a strange sign hanging with illuminated writing on it that says:
Platform 1
Revelation Express
1830
You don’t know what time it is right now, and half of you have a pang of pain in your forehead as you’re suddenly able to read the time in a manner your world doesn’t use.
Looking down the track it seems to fade into a tunnel of pitch darkness, and the other way seems to stop at a wall painted to look like blue sky. Staring at it long enough shows images of clouds rolling in from the concrete wall all the way across and out again.
There is a dust covered shop with rotten packaged food, weird little cans that have liquid in them, and books of fiction, plus three small, separate toilets with odd symbols on the front.
What do you do?
OOC: Just a reminder, there’s no going back through a soft place. It’s one way.
Discern Realities, Spout Lore (very limited unless you have trains where you’re from) and so on would be a start.
Gisard's gonna look at these toilets, which he guesses they are because of finely honed archaeologist's instincts. Perhaps the former occupants of this structure had interestingly bizarre anatomy that can be inferred from their toilets.
Oh also how dark is it down here? Is there any ambient light coming from anywhere, or are we working off various people's portable light sources?
A thin shaft of light breaks across the vast wall, but it doesn’t reach the ground. An artificial blueness reflects from the sky coloured wall, but it is quickly lost to the shadows. Everyone can see enough that they won’t fall over, though Light would be a great help (but I’m about to describe the place regardless).
Meanwhile Scout as a couple shoulder mounted lights to aid them as they peer over the track. The lights do not pierce the jet black tunnel.
—
The first door has a humanoid shape drawn on it. Doors with human shapes on them are most unpleasant to you these days. Tentatively opening the door reveals nothing out of the ordinary. There are a few stalls with toilets, three urinals, and sinks with mirrors in front of them. The taps splutter, but die before any water pours out. It reeks of stale mammalian piss.
The second door has a similar shape with two points either side of it. You wonder what unusual bodily feature these ones had to separate them so. Are those innate gliders? Fins? Fascinating. It’s a little better kept, though a mirror has been taken from the wall. Upon checking the final stall you find a small sturdy looking device with keys on with a tiny shattered screen. Initial prodding produces no effect (step one of wizard archeology complete). It isn’t magical, you guess.
Stepping back out you see the wall you passed to get in has been vandalised in smudged black ink. It reads:
THe MAZe MoVeS
hiS PReTtieS ARe iN THE WALLS
GO BeyOND
Which is not very comforting. You close the fin-door delicately.
—
The last one has the icon of a figure sat on half a wheel. Pass on what they were. But wizards like to sit. A bit elitist but not unusual for there to be elitist wizards. Maybe?
This one is just a toilet with handrails to aid the user. Also there is a skeleton slumped on it with an axe through their skull. Next to them is a bag. Looks full.
Gisard prepares to cast light on the end of his staff, and then remembers he lost it. Sigh. He thinks for a moment, then pulls the axe out of the skeleton. What kind of axe is it? Small, one-handed? Two-handed? A tool or a weapon?
It’s a battle axe, but pretty stumpy. You can wield it in one hand, but it’s heavy even for you. You don’t have to worry about it being magic, it almost feels like the opposite, purposefully mundane, metal dug up from the depths, a weapon passed down through a bloodline, an axe of axes.
You’ve seen this culture’s work, or an equivalent from your own world at any rate. What race made this battle axe?
Battle Axe of the _____
close, +1 damage, 2 weight
If you wield it two-handed it has +2 damage, but it’s nature stops you from casting spells while you do so.
—
The skull caves in on itself, then what remains drops into the skeleton’s lap.
Looks like an axe of Vidofnir design. The Vidofnir are dwarven barbarians (from the Jormungandi point of view where 'barbarian' is just the word for any culture not part of the empire, not the Conan the Barbarian type of barbarian) that live in a region of jungles and mountains somewhere beyond the southeast border of the empire on Gisard's world.
It's not really Gisard's style but it's better than being unarmed so he takes the axe with him. Also he casts Light on his hat.
Guess you’ll never meet who left it, or know how long ago that skeleton met its end, or why. Part of you wishes you had time to truly take the measure of this site.
The bag has soft things in it as far as you can tell. Nothing sinister or alive.
Inside the bag you find: Adventuring Gear
A collection of useful mundane items such as chalk, poles, spikes, ropes, etc. When you rummage through your adventuring gear for some useful mundane item, you find what you need and mark off a use.
5 uses, 1 weight
Evening Wear
The skeleton is wearing a patchwork of scrounged leathers fit for a skulking rogue on an adventure, which makes this attire all the stranger. Perhaps it was the corpse’s original clothing before being drawn into Glamjin’s game.
dapper as all get out, 0 weight
Under Garments
About a weeks worth of things what you wear under your things if you’re very civilised that way.
0 weight
Drought of Strength
Looks like a rectangular brandy bottle with a circus strongman on the label. Inside a cloudy liquid stirs even when placed on the flat ground for some time. You can’t study it to see what it actually does, you’d have to drink it all to know.
Bedroll
Sheets, bedding, a pillow.
1 weight
Pouch of Marbles
A leather pouch full of marbles. You can throw one as a distraction, or play a game. If you empty the lot you could make a simple trap (one use, you’ll never get enough back).
0 weight
Amateur Bestiary
A scrapbook of decent artwork and limited prose concerning a dozen monsters. There’s a pen stuck in the middle pages that dried up long ago. May warrant further study.
0 weight
Silver Ring
A small black case holds a silver ring with a sapphire inset fit for a slender finger. Close study shows it has no interesting properties.
0 weight
—
Van Lonestar hovers over you awhile but backs off to raid elsewhere once he’s settled on none of it being of value to him.
“I don’t like the sound of ghosts,” drawls Paolo, drawing his revolver and aiming it upwards, “I don’t like that at all...”
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
"Well, I don't know what you guys have all seen before you got to this desert, but we ran across one ghost already. I'm not really interested in repeating that kind of experience."
Bran draws his Ivory Longbow.
"That said, at least we've got a few more tricks up our sleeves since last time. And by tricks, I mean stuff that kills ghosts dead."
Even saying it with confidence, it still sounds weird to his own ears.
The rogue starts carefully pacing up and down the platform. The structure has a hint of familiarity to him; the concept of rail wagons isn't totally unknown where he hails, but this is far more slick that anything he'd even heard of. But if it is a railway...where are the wagons?
Then you’re left in silence, until with great weight Margulis, the grey skinned elf who has thus far not uttered a word to any of you, gasps, “Jaedeus fucking Kythist.”
A huge beast is pounding towards you, an unstoppable tunnelling rumbling thing. Holly, you fear it to be a great worm. A devourer. A conqueror worm. It must have made the tunnel.
The name ‘Leviathan’ runs through your head Bran, as does the thought of that one novel with the big pale whale. But no, it’s a rail wagon, it’s a vehicle. You pull your bowstring taut as a way of steeling yourself from animal fear. You’re better than that. You killed a dragon.
Yeah Gisard told people what it said on the wall in the bathroom before the train showed up. He's going to take the bestiary from the bag, he has no interest in the rest of the contents.
When the train shows up he ducks back into the bathrooms and peeks around the corner with his hat still glowing.
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
edited April 2019
Holly bags the strength potion, dapper suit and silver ring, in case there's a party in her near future.
When the leviathan approaches Holly stands shoulder to shoulder with Bran and keeps Sweet Eleanor drawn but lax at her side, scrutinising the approaching beast.
The rumbling, driven noise only grows louder as it approaches. Interspersed are its wailing cries, neither anger nor sorrow, a soulless dull scream of progression, a call of its coming. You sense it’s speed as the ground trembles. But against expectation it slows as it breaks the pitch dark of the tunnel and comes to a drawn out halt at an inch perfect middle between the tunnel’s mouth and the sky blue wall. Clouds of steam run thick along its back.
The illuminated sign changes to read:
Platform 1
Revelation Express
Arrived
Then a door opens up out and sideways back long it’s black metal side.
“All aboard the Revelation Express to the Tower of Glory!”, says a cheerful conductor.
And when none of the people pointing weapons at him move, he repeats himself extra cheerfully.
“Whatever it takes.”, Sir Krig growls from a dramatically appropriate shadow he’s been stood in dramatically for the past five minutes. He steps towards the conductor.
The tiny frog samurai is crouched, hand on her katana blade, “Dooli, what is this?”
“Magical mystery ride. Heavily armoured too. Room for plenty. Maybe this guy expected more of us. No weirder than the seaweed horse in that first cave, right? Now I think...”, the muscular lizardfolk gladiator slams there hammer to the ground, “I thought we were in the bloody tower?! Oh great! I guess we’re going to another tower inside this tower and that’s just great. Fine. Then there’s portals at the top to take us home, yeah? Hm? There better be! Just fine. Yeah. Great.”
The samurai croaks nervously at the usually relaxed gladiator’s pent up aggression. Noticing, he subsides, strikes a match and lights a cigarette taken from the abandoned shop (amusingly tiny looking in his jaws).
The conductor smiles and begins to pull off little tickets for each of you.
—
Holly
What here is not what it appears to be?
This guy. This guy isn’t alive. Consider the idea of colours, the rainbow, now apply it to being undead. There’s a full spectrum of possibilities. You’re pretty unique yourself, not bound by place or under another’s rule. That bitch of a ghost was weak, but could possess a body. Who knows what this guy’s deal is?
Seems you can add seeing one of your own to your list of cool abilities.
That said, you’re pretty sure he’s the violet to your red. He’s on the other end of possibilities, you’re not alike at all.
“Well, I learned a bit of boxing once. I mean, I portrayed a boxer on film, but I got an award for that one so...”, he relents, “Yeah.”
Sir Krig, and therefore Paolo, the kid and Van Lonestar, will be boarding the steam train presently.
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited April 2019
"Alright. Look, this is a real shit situation we're all in, and unless your pistol there somehow has an inexhaustible supply of bullets, you're gonna need more than your fists if it runs dry. Take this; I'm not sentimental, but this blade's gotten me out of a few scrapes. Hell, trade it up for something more useful even, if it's not to your taste and you get the chance."
Bran moves to hand Paolo his Short Sword.
"I know we're on different teams or whatever, but what Glamjin did isn't...well...fuck that guy, right?"
Bran stops just short of saying something he might actually regret, and then turns to board the Express.
[OOC: Grabbing the Adventuring Kit puts me overweight, and I'd rather give my sword to someone than drop it. Also, I think Bran's got a thing for Paolo. Not romantic feelings, but he sees another guy out of his depth like himself and it sticks in his craw that Glamjin grabbed him.]
Sir Krig calls him away, “Triumph awaits us, I shall not tarry again. Come.”
Paolo nods in agreement with you over the whole ordeal and sheaths the short sword on his second attempt.
He turns, walks, then takes the last few steps to the train backwards, “Usually at this point I’ve got a good line. When all this is over maybe I’ll try writing a script for a change. Hm... Wherever we end up pilgrim, we’ll not be enemies.”
His party all take a ticket and get on the train.
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
"Time to board the carousel, I'd say." She gives the conductor a grin as she takes a ticket, cocking her skull to the side. "Are you sentient? Or does Glamjin populate his worlds with mindless automatons?"
“Welcome to the finest locomotive on the line ma’am! I’m Finnegan, and I’ll be your conductor today. There are no stops along the way, so we’ll get there in no time. Hop yourself aboard and we’ll be on our way.”
He meets your gaze unblinkingly.
—
The last party get in line for a ticket too.
—
Gisard, what do you think will happen on the train? Just out of interest.
Gisard eyes the conductor suspiciously. He doesn't really have any particular reason to think Finnegan is undead, but he did say this place felt haunted and fate has a way of making his worst premonitions come true. This giant machine seems like a terrifying deathtrap, also? And the ride is probably going to be some sort of STUPID GODDAMN TRIAL Glamjin set up for us. Maybe we'll be stuck on the train traveling forever until we solve a murder or something. Gisard's not sure why he associated murder mysteries with this vehicle he's never seen or heard of before, but somehow it feels right.
Bran, you’re the last on the platform. Pomme waits with a boot firmly against the door as the others step on.
For the rest of you, you’re met with rich mahogany wood finishings, thick carpet with some godawful pattern on it, and ornate lighting that flickers as you step beneath it.
The train is separated into carriages, and each carriage has two cabins on either side of a corridor running the length of the train.
Krig’s party take up a carriage two ahead of yours while Dooli’s are inbetween. You can’t fit Hao-Gou into the cabin with you (he broke a bunch of stuff to get in, and doesn’t look like he’ll stop any time soon) so he’ll have to squeeze into the cabin opposite you.
The train is clean, but lived in. There’s a scratch over there, a newspaper of relevance on some world, but not here, and a couple spent items of little import. Overall though it doesn’t look like there’s ever been a struggle here. No ominous stains at least.
Up ahead you can see Scout has their sensor arrays on full alert, head planted against the carpet, but their companions are already in their cabin. Beyond them Sir Krig is keeping watching half-in half-out of the cabin his party has chosen. His sword is still in hand.
“All aboard the Revelation Express to the Tower of Glory!”, says Finnegan cheerfully.
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited April 2019
Bran shakes his head. Never not weird, even when familiar.
The rogue pats Pomme on the shoulder, in a familial way, as he boards the train.
You hear a chuff of steam, the pistons of the wheels quietly scraping against the track, and then you’re off. You’re jostled about some as the train rides off. You’d think tracks would make for a smooth ride. Oh well.
The train passes through the blue wall (which blasts apart like a bullet through paper) and— then—
A static oily rippling sharp angled greyness expanding on and on. Horizonless. Fractured, fragmenting, deep.
The windows are limiting, but you make out brickwork block rooms and rugged cave sections, metallic domes as large as stadiums and the occasional broken ruin, exposed, naked to the elements. Varies biomes dot the ruins. Looking close you see laserfire in one, smoke billows out of another. Each location is suspended by impossibly thin metal wires, or held up by pillars, or lifted precariously by propellers.
Some are being moved around, with corridors stuck in between or even built at speed by hunched creatures.
A massive sandstone structure is hoisted about a yard by your window and continues up for a full minute. Peering as hard as you can forward you see it’s easily ten miles long. One of the worker creatures suddenly leaps up the structure, then looks right at Gisard. Then it’s gone.
Everyone roll 1d6 for unreality sickness.
1. You suffer 3 psychic damage (ignores armour, can only be healed by rest).
2. Your mind is transported. Name a spirit you wish to contact (or leave it to the GM). You pull that creature through the planes, just close enough to speak to you. It is bound to answer any one question you ask to the best of its ability.
3. You puke up, even out of your nose. Especially out of your nose.
4. Answer this honestly: What do you miss most from your own world?
5. You are terrified and need consoling to be somewhat useful again.
6. Add +2 to a statistic, and remove -2 from another.
The sight of it all hits you like a woolly iguanodon.
What’s worse is that creature. The way it looked at you, or through you. The impending sense they’ve always been behind closed doors—in the walls—these pretties, and that there must be... you dread to consider the number.
You clasp your claws over your eyes and let out a throaty crocodilian sound. Something in the lizard (extra-lizard) part of your brain revolts at the nightmarish scale of this game.
You take 3 psychic damage.
Then just as soon as it struck you, you return to your senses.
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
edited April 2019
Geth, roll 1d6 for Reality Sickness
[OCC: Oh shit, hit me with that sweet sweet flavor, Endless!]
You’re a shadow. Have you always been a little shadow? No. No. Darkness doesn’t ask such questions. You’ll have some legs then, to get around. Eyes to see. Why not the whole works while you’re at it? You’re a shadow of you. Oh right, a shade, that’s the term.
You ought to be somewhere too. You won’t get anything done nowhere. So you’re somewhere. That’s a start.
You find yourself climbing over masses of shed skin and trekking through slippery layers of salt and fossil crammed rock-pools. It’s raining lightly, and the rain tastes sickly of salt. Looking up you see a dark green ocean, tempestuous and cold. Sea life swims up above.
This was a city once. You know this. Even though there isn’t a single sign of it.
The snake has always been here. Is here. But you only notice him now. His colossal coils protect you from the rain. Soon you are sheltered beneath him, his giant head poking in from within itself and down to your level.
He clears his throat. You hear several distant tails rattle.
“I’ve been hoping to get in touch from the start. A mortal being pulled from my half-cousin’s plane has given me a unique chance to step in and lend a hand. So to speak. I’m Pythagon, the Snake of Too Many Angles Who Entangles the World. But not this world, obviously.”
Yes. That’s alright. That’s a god. A forgotten god from Gisard’s world. It’s all so clear.
“I was hoping your wizard would have thought to give me a ring, but youths today think they know it all. Oh, look at me, I’ve got a pointy hat and I write things and oh isn’t it great now we’ve split the manna? Honestly it all went down hill when magic users learned how to keep spells in their heads after casting them and started wearing, tsk, armour under their robes. They got uppity.”
You hear yourself talking, “In mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry consists of two geometries based on axioms closely related to..”, you just keep going, “..of metric geometry and affine geometry, non-Euclidean geometry arises when either the metric requirement...”
The god waits patiently, then raises their voice, “As I was saying, I’m here to help. You are all stuck in the metaphysical outer plane of Informe. The realm of thought, the kingdom of imagination, the kitchen sink that gets clogged up with stories. Glamjin has carved himself out a niche here and made it his own with raw power and force of will. This is your weapon. You’re not simply bound by your mortal bodies here, you can think your way out!”
“Now pay attention as I explain in d e t a i
—
You feel like you’re simultaneously falling and sat drooling on the train.
You’ve got time to ask one question!
Endless_Serpents on
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NipsHe/HimLuxuriating in existential crisis.Registered Userregular
"How do I destroy Glamjin the faerie?"
Bran's not even sure those words came from his voice box, or if they instead came from a primal urge buried in his mind.
A second head pushes in through the coils as the rain becomes torrential.
“Subvert the narrative he has designed. Do not take the gift you desire when offered. Find him at the liminal edge where his sun has yet to rise anew, and drive a mortal blade through his heart.”
The water is deafening now. You’re back. Your ears pop. You feel damp and clammy. You look pale too.
OOC: Best question!
Edit: My phone changed ears to eyes there, which was mildly frightful even for me to read.
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
edited April 2019
Holly realises just in time what the familiar sensation is and detaches her skull just in time, holding it out into the corridor. Dooli, who stepped out of their cabin to get some space, glances down the corridor to see a disembodied skull spraying puke onto the floor. The psychic horror of it is incalculable.
Edit: With your quick thinking you avoid any major discomfort.
Had you not thought so quickly this might have happened: Congealed blood and gunk pours out of your orifices and crawls over you skull in stilted spurts of movement. You scrape at it with your bony fingers, standing up in the cabin.
You feel it latching onto your fingers, but fortunately Pomme pulls out a cloth and helps you wipe yourself clean.
But it didn’t!
The puke scabs over on the carpet. Stuck in the hardened bloody vomit is a burial gift. Something a loved one puts beside the dead on the day of the funeral.
“Mon Dieu!”, exclaims Pomme.
Holly, answer:
What is the trinket? Who would have put it in your coffin with you?
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GrogMy sword is only steelin a useful shape.Registered Userregular
It's a sigil of a great dynasty, the blood sinking into the relief pattern and picking out the personal markings of Princess Gotsdóttir. She was a friendly rival of Holly's, but she couldn't have left it herself- she died 2 years before that fateful horseriding accident.
Arms still extended and holding her skull above the muck, she taps her chin. Could it be that someone had known about their secret dalliances? Or - gasp! - had the Princess faked her death entirely?
Posts
Geth, roll 2d6+1 for Scouting (WIS)
Geth, roll 2d6+1 for Trailblazing (wis)
You arrive at the soft place in good time, it’s into the afternoon, but by the amulet’s assessment you’ll still have light as you reach the exit. You shaved about 2 hours off just by knowing how to traverse deserts properly Gisard! You are entitled to feel very well informed and leader-ish.
You don’t see any difference between the rest of the desert and here, which is worrying. Sir Krig is obviously the first to voice concerns (how he isn’t sweating in that armour amazes you, and perhaps gives you pause on his species), but the rest murmur about it too, and tensions flare.
The amulet around Gisard’s neck pulls this way and that, until at last it finds that perfect angle. It instructs Gisard to throw a rock at the empty air. It vanishes. The complaints stop.
Looks like you’re going to have to trust you’ll walk out onto safe ground. Fortunately, you do.
Bran, you and Lonestar have done a pretty good job scouting. He’s crass, disrespectful and you might even call him scum (and villainy) if you weren’t a thief yourself, but working with him wasn’t so bad. You’ve got a good feeling about this journey. Nothing surprises the parties.
Gisard, you’re the first through the soft place, then Sir Krig.
“I should go first into unknown territory scaled devil. I am the most powerful, it is only right.”, which might be ‘thank you’ where he’s from, “Remember that.”
Probably not though.
The rest come tumbling after in a line for fear of being left behind.
The amulet reveals the next one, then the next. You feet tingle as you pass through, and you all feel what might be described as jet lag if you knew what a jet was.
Behind you is a massive semicircular wall of concrete higher than any structure you’ve yet witnessed.
In front of you is... right, let’s see. There’s this dip in the flat ground, and looking over you see metal tracks on a gravelled ground. There is a strange sign hanging with illuminated writing on it that says:
Platform 1
Revelation Express
1830
You don’t know what time it is right now, and half of you have a pang of pain in your forehead as you’re suddenly able to read the time in a manner your world doesn’t use.
Looking down the track it seems to fade into a tunnel of pitch darkness, and the other way seems to stop at a wall painted to look like blue sky. Staring at it long enough shows images of clouds rolling in from the concrete wall all the way across and out again.
There is a dust covered shop with rotten packaged food, weird little cans that have liquid in them, and books of fiction, plus three small, separate toilets with odd symbols on the front.
What do you do?
OOC: Just a reminder, there’s no going back through a soft place. It’s one way.
Discern Realities, Spout Lore (very limited unless you have trains where you’re from) and so on would be a start.
The kid is already in the shop.
“Paolo, come and see! It’s really dusty and dirty!”, she hollers.
The kid opens a can, sniffs it, then pours it out.
“This must be soooo old because soda lasts forever usually.”
Scout chimes in, “That was an incorrect use of the word ‘forever’. Would you like the definition?”
Oh also how dark is it down here? Is there any ambient light coming from anywhere, or are we working off various people's portable light sources?
A thin shaft of light breaks across the vast wall, but it doesn’t reach the ground. An artificial blueness reflects from the sky coloured wall, but it is quickly lost to the shadows. Everyone can see enough that they won’t fall over, though Light would be a great help (but I’m about to describe the place regardless).
Meanwhile Scout as a couple shoulder mounted lights to aid them as they peer over the track. The lights do not pierce the jet black tunnel.
—
The first door has a humanoid shape drawn on it. Doors with human shapes on them are most unpleasant to you these days. Tentatively opening the door reveals nothing out of the ordinary. There are a few stalls with toilets, three urinals, and sinks with mirrors in front of them. The taps splutter, but die before any water pours out. It reeks of stale mammalian piss.
The second door has a similar shape with two points either side of it. You wonder what unusual bodily feature these ones had to separate them so. Are those innate gliders? Fins? Fascinating. It’s a little better kept, though a mirror has been taken from the wall. Upon checking the final stall you find a small sturdy looking device with keys on with a tiny shattered screen. Initial prodding produces no effect (step one of wizard archeology complete). It isn’t magical, you guess.
Stepping back out you see the wall you passed to get in has been vandalised in smudged black ink. It reads:
THe MAZe MoVeS
hiS PReTtieS ARe iN THE WALLS
GO BeyOND
Which is not very comforting. You close the fin-door delicately.
—
The last one has the icon of a figure sat on half a wheel. Pass on what they were. But wizards like to sit. A bit elitist but not unusual for there to be elitist wizards. Maybe?
This one is just a toilet with handrails to aid the user. Also there is a skeleton slumped on it with an axe through their skull. Next to them is a bag. Looks full.
What do you do?
It’s a battle axe, but pretty stumpy. You can wield it in one hand, but it’s heavy even for you. You don’t have to worry about it being magic, it almost feels like the opposite, purposefully mundane, metal dug up from the depths, a weapon passed down through a bloodline, an axe of axes.
You’ve seen this culture’s work, or an equivalent from your own world at any rate. What race made this battle axe?
Battle Axe of the _____
close, +1 damage, 2 weight
If you wield it two-handed it has +2 damage, but it’s nature stops you from casting spells while you do so.
—
The skull caves in on itself, then what remains drops into the skeleton’s lap.
It's not really Gisard's style but it's better than being unarmed so he takes the axe with him. Also he casts Light on his hat.
Geth, roll 2d6+2 for Cast a Spell.
Then he cautiously prods the bag with his foot.
Guess you’ll never meet who left it, or know how long ago that skeleton met its end, or why. Part of you wishes you had time to truly take the measure of this site.
The bag has soft things in it as far as you can tell. Nothing sinister or alive.
Adventuring Gear
A collection of useful mundane items such as chalk, poles, spikes, ropes, etc. When you rummage through your adventuring gear for some useful mundane item, you find what you need and mark off a use.
5 uses, 1 weight
Evening Wear
The skeleton is wearing a patchwork of scrounged leathers fit for a skulking rogue on an adventure, which makes this attire all the stranger. Perhaps it was the corpse’s original clothing before being drawn into Glamjin’s game.
dapper as all get out, 0 weight
Under Garments
About a weeks worth of things what you wear under your things if you’re very civilised that way.
0 weight
Drought of Strength
Looks like a rectangular brandy bottle with a circus strongman on the label. Inside a cloudy liquid stirs even when placed on the flat ground for some time. You can’t study it to see what it actually does, you’d have to drink it all to know.
Bedroll
Sheets, bedding, a pillow.
1 weight
Pouch of Marbles
A leather pouch full of marbles. You can throw one as a distraction, or play a game. If you empty the lot you could make a simple trap (one use, you’ll never get enough back).
0 weight
Amateur Bestiary
A scrapbook of decent artwork and limited prose concerning a dozen monsters. There’s a pen stuck in the middle pages that dried up long ago. May warrant further study.
0 weight
Silver Ring
A small black case holds a silver ring with a sapphire inset fit for a slender finger. Close study shows it has no interesting properties.
0 weight
—
Van Lonestar hovers over you awhile but backs off to raid elsewhere once he’s settled on none of it being of value to him.
“I don’t like the sound of ghosts,” drawls Paolo, drawing his revolver and aiming it upwards, “I don’t like that at all...”
Bran draws his Ivory Longbow.
"That said, at least we've got a few more tricks up our sleeves since last time. And by tricks, I mean stuff that kills ghosts dead."
Even saying it with confidence, it still sounds weird to his own ears.
The rogue starts carefully pacing up and down the platform. The structure has a hint of familiarity to him; the concept of rail wagons isn't totally unknown where he hails, but this is far more slick that anything he'd even heard of. But if it is a railway...where are the wagons?
Geth, roll 2d6+1 for Discern Realities (WIS)
Do any of you want what’s in the bag? Consider anything left to be taken by the other adventurers.
—
Part of you says to jump down onto the tracks Bran, to get a better look down that dark as Hell tunnel, but you think better of it.
A little while passes without much going down, and you chew over what to make of the place.
—
Suddenly everyone stops. You all hear something. Something distant.
Then you’re left in silence, until with great weight Margulis, the grey skinned elf who has thus far not uttered a word to any of you, gasps, “Jaedeus fucking Kythist.”
A huge beast is pounding towards you, an unstoppable tunnelling rumbling thing. Holly, you fear it to be a great worm. A devourer. A conqueror worm. It must have made the tunnel.
The name ‘Leviathan’ runs through your head Bran, as does the thought of that one novel with the big pale whale. But no, it’s a rail wagon, it’s a vehicle. You pull your bowstring taut as a way of steeling yourself from animal fear. You’re better than that. You killed a dragon.
"It should just be a mechanical wagon. Probably our way out of this place. But let's give it space, y'know, just in case."
Bran still has his bow half-drawn out of reflex.
[Edit] [OOC: If no one else wants them, Bran will grab the Adventuring Gear and the Marbles.]
When the train shows up he ducks back into the bathrooms and peeks around the corner with his hat still glowing.
When the leviathan approaches Holly stands shoulder to shoulder with Bran and keeps Sweet Eleanor drawn but lax at her side, scrutinising the approaching beast.
Geth, roll 2d6 for Discern Realities
What here is not what it appears to be?
The rumbling, driven noise only grows louder as it approaches. Interspersed are its wailing cries, neither anger nor sorrow, a soulless dull scream of progression, a call of its coming. You sense it’s speed as the ground trembles. But against expectation it slows as it breaks the pitch dark of the tunnel and comes to a drawn out halt at an inch perfect middle between the tunnel’s mouth and the sky blue wall. Clouds of steam run thick along its back.
The illuminated sign changes to read:
Platform 1
Revelation Express
Arrived
Then a door opens up out and sideways back long it’s black metal side.
“All aboard the Revelation Express to the Tower of Glory!”, says a cheerful conductor.
And when none of the people pointing weapons at him move, he repeats himself extra cheerfully.
“Whatever it takes.”, Sir Krig growls from a dramatically appropriate shadow he’s been stood in dramatically for the past five minutes. He steps towards the conductor.
The tiny frog samurai is crouched, hand on her katana blade, “Dooli, what is this?”
“Magical mystery ride. Heavily armoured too. Room for plenty. Maybe this guy expected more of us. No weirder than the seaweed horse in that first cave, right? Now I think...”, the muscular lizardfolk gladiator slams there hammer to the ground, “I thought we were in the bloody tower?! Oh great! I guess we’re going to another tower inside this tower and that’s just great. Fine. Then there’s portals at the top to take us home, yeah? Hm? There better be! Just fine. Yeah. Great.”
The samurai croaks nervously at the usually relaxed gladiator’s pent up aggression. Noticing, he subsides, strikes a match and lights a cigarette taken from the abandoned shop (amusingly tiny looking in his jaws).
The conductor smiles and begins to pull off little tickets for each of you.
—
Holly
What here is not what it appears to be?
This guy. This guy isn’t alive. Consider the idea of colours, the rainbow, now apply it to being undead. There’s a full spectrum of possibilities. You’re pretty unique yourself, not bound by place or under another’s rule. That bitch of a ghost was weak, but could possess a body. Who knows what this guy’s deal is?
Seems you can add seeing one of your own to your list of cool abilities.
That said, you’re pretty sure he’s the violet to your red. He’s on the other end of possibilities, you’re not alike at all.
"Hey. Is that firearm your only weapon?"
Sir Krig, and therefore Paolo, the kid and Van Lonestar, will be boarding the steam train presently.
Bran moves to hand Paolo his Short Sword.
"I know we're on different teams or whatever, but what Glamjin did isn't...well...fuck that guy, right?"
Bran stops just short of saying something he might actually regret, and then turns to board the Express.
[OOC: Grabbing the Adventuring Kit puts me overweight, and I'd rather give my sword to someone than drop it. Also, I think Bran's got a thing for Paolo. Not romantic feelings, but he sees another guy out of his depth like himself and it sticks in his craw that Glamjin grabbed him.]
He gives it an experimental swing.
Sir Krig calls him away, “Triumph awaits us, I shall not tarry again. Come.”
Paolo nods in agreement with you over the whole ordeal and sheaths the short sword on his second attempt.
He turns, walks, then takes the last few steps to the train backwards, “Usually at this point I’ve got a good line. When all this is over maybe I’ll try writing a script for a change. Hm... Wherever we end up pilgrim, we’ll not be enemies.”
His party all take a ticket and get on the train.
“Welcome to the finest locomotive on the line ma’am! I’m Finnegan, and I’ll be your conductor today. There are no stops along the way, so we’ll get there in no time. Hop yourself aboard and we’ll be on our way.”
He meets your gaze unblinkingly.
—
The last party get in line for a ticket too.
—
Gisard, what do you think will happen on the train? Just out of interest.
Anyway he follows the others on.
For the rest of you, you’re met with rich mahogany wood finishings, thick carpet with some godawful pattern on it, and ornate lighting that flickers as you step beneath it.
The train is separated into carriages, and each carriage has two cabins on either side of a corridor running the length of the train.
Krig’s party take up a carriage two ahead of yours while Dooli’s are inbetween. You can’t fit Hao-Gou into the cabin with you (he broke a bunch of stuff to get in, and doesn’t look like he’ll stop any time soon) so he’ll have to squeeze into the cabin opposite you.
The train is clean, but lived in. There’s a scratch over there, a newspaper of relevance on some world, but not here, and a couple spent items of little import. Overall though it doesn’t look like there’s ever been a struggle here. No ominous stains at least.
Up ahead you can see Scout has their sensor arrays on full alert, head planted against the carpet, but their companions are already in their cabin. Beyond them Sir Krig is keeping watching half-in half-out of the cabin his party has chosen. His sword is still in hand.
“All aboard the Revelation Express to the Tower of Glory!”, says Finnegan cheerfully.
The rogue pats Pomme on the shoulder, in a familial way, as he boards the train.
The train passes through the blue wall (which blasts apart like a bullet through paper) and— then—
A static oily rippling sharp angled greyness expanding on and on. Horizonless. Fractured, fragmenting, deep.
The windows are limiting, but you make out brickwork block rooms and rugged cave sections, metallic domes as large as stadiums and the occasional broken ruin, exposed, naked to the elements. Varies biomes dot the ruins. Looking close you see laserfire in one, smoke billows out of another. Each location is suspended by impossibly thin metal wires, or held up by pillars, or lifted precariously by propellers.
Some are being moved around, with corridors stuck in between or even built at speed by hunched creatures.
A massive sandstone structure is hoisted about a yard by your window and continues up for a full minute. Peering as hard as you can forward you see it’s easily ten miles long. One of the worker creatures suddenly leaps up the structure, then looks right at Gisard. Then it’s gone.
Everyone roll 1d6 for unreality sickness.
1. You suffer 3 psychic damage (ignores armour, can only be healed by rest).
2. Your mind is transported. Name a spirit you wish to contact (or leave it to the GM). You pull that creature through the planes, just close enough to speak to you. It is bound to answer any one question you ask to the best of its ability.
3. You puke up, even out of your nose. Especially out of your nose.
4. Answer this honestly: What do you miss most from your own world?
5. You are terrified and need consoling to be somewhat useful again.
6. Add +2 to a statistic, and remove -2 from another.
The sight of it all hits you like a woolly iguanodon.
What’s worse is that creature. The way it looked at you, or through you. The impending sense they’ve always been behind closed doors—in the walls—these pretties, and that there must be... you dread to consider the number.
You clasp your claws over your eyes and let out a throaty crocodilian sound. Something in the lizard (extra-lizard) part of your brain revolts at the nightmarish scale of this game.
You take 3 psychic damage.
Then just as soon as it struck you, you return to your senses.
[OCC: Oh shit, hit me with that sweet sweet flavor, Endless!]
You’re a shadow. Have you always been a little shadow? No. No. Darkness doesn’t ask such questions. You’ll have some legs then, to get around. Eyes to see. Why not the whole works while you’re at it? You’re a shadow of you. Oh right, a shade, that’s the term.
You ought to be somewhere too. You won’t get anything done nowhere. So you’re somewhere. That’s a start.
You find yourself climbing over masses of shed skin and trekking through slippery layers of salt and fossil crammed rock-pools. It’s raining lightly, and the rain tastes sickly of salt. Looking up you see a dark green ocean, tempestuous and cold. Sea life swims up above.
This was a city once. You know this. Even though there isn’t a single sign of it.
The snake has always been here. Is here. But you only notice him now. His colossal coils protect you from the rain. Soon you are sheltered beneath him, his giant head poking in from within itself and down to your level.
“Ãłł thåt šçhóòlïńg ànd thęŷ ñevėr čāłł øn Pythågöñ.”
He clears his throat. You hear several distant tails rattle.
“I’ve been hoping to get in touch from the start. A mortal being pulled from my half-cousin’s plane has given me a unique chance to step in and lend a hand. So to speak. I’m Pythagon, the Snake of Too Many Angles Who Entangles the World. But not this world, obviously.”
Yes. That’s alright. That’s a god. A forgotten god from Gisard’s world. It’s all so clear.
“I was hoping your wizard would have thought to give me a ring, but youths today think they know it all. Oh, look at me, I’ve got a pointy hat and I write things and oh isn’t it great now we’ve split the manna? Honestly it all went down hill when magic users learned how to keep spells in their heads after casting them and started wearing, tsk, armour under their robes. They got uppity.”
You hear yourself talking, “In mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry consists of two geometries based on axioms closely related to..”, you just keep going, “..of metric geometry and affine geometry, non-Euclidean geometry arises when either the metric requirement...”
The god waits patiently, then raises their voice, “As I was saying, I’m here to help. You are all stuck in the metaphysical outer plane of Informe. The realm of thought, the kingdom of imagination, the kitchen sink that gets clogged up with stories. Glamjin has carved himself out a niche here and made it his own with raw power and force of will. This is your weapon. You’re not simply bound by your mortal bodies here, you can think your way out!”
“Now pay attention as I explain in d e t a i
—
You feel like you’re simultaneously falling and sat drooling on the train.
You’ve got time to ask one question!
Bran's not even sure those words came from his voice box, or if they instead came from a primal urge buried in his mind.
“Subvert the narrative he has designed. Do not take the gift you desire when offered. Find him at the liminal edge where his sun has yet to rise anew, and drive a mortal blade through his heart.”
The water is deafening now. You’re back. Your ears pop. You feel damp and clammy. You look pale too.
OOC: Best question!
Edit: My phone changed ears to eyes there, which was mildly frightful even for me to read.
Geth, roll 1d6 for Unreal Engine Sickness
Had you not thought so quickly this might have happened:
Congealed blood and gunk pours out of your orifices and crawls over you skull in stilted spurts of movement. You scrape at it with your bony fingers, standing up in the cabin.
You feel it latching onto your fingers, but fortunately Pomme pulls out a cloth and helps you wipe yourself clean.
But it didn’t!
The puke scabs over on the carpet. Stuck in the hardened bloody vomit is a burial gift. Something a loved one puts beside the dead on the day of the funeral.
“Mon Dieu!”, exclaims Pomme.
Holly, answer:
What is the trinket? Who would have put it in your coffin with you?
Arms still extended and holding her skull above the muck, she taps her chin. Could it be that someone had known about their secret dalliances? Or - gasp! - had the Princess faked her death entirely?