Present Party: Claudia, Emori, and Steve.
Setting: Typical medieval fantasy world with various Greek elements, seen mostly in temples. The gods in this world are part of the Greek Pantheon.
Steve and Aria stayed the night at Lex and Conah's house in Norbury. When Steve woke up, he noticed that Aria was missing. When he asked Conah about it, he said that she went on a walk with Ava. When she was ready, he'd double back to get her, but for now, Conah could escort Steve and the young Alaion up to Blackpool to see Ike. Conah's son, Callan, also came home and tagged along with them.
A few hours into their walk, Conah and Callan suddenly stopped, looking at several yellow beams that had shot into the sky. One was coming from Norbury and there were several others on the southern horizon.
Conah looked at Steve. "You said you wanted to meet Ike, right? I can tell you right now, this way will be a lot quicker."
Steve agreed, and Conah told Callan to keep going with Alaion.
Then, he turned to Steve again with a smirk on his face. "Have you ever ridden a dragon before."
"Uh... no."
"Well... as I always say, there's a first time for everything!"
Conah transformed into a hulking red dragon in the blink of an eye. The two of them flew off, and met up with a bronze dragon on the way, who had a rider: a young man with pale, freckled skin and red hair. After a while, they descended. Steve saw Confidence, Claudia, and Emori beside a crater with a white, scaly egg inside. The bronze dragon landed first, in front of them and the rider dismounted. Then Steve and Conah touched down. Following them were three much larger dragons: two gold, and one black.
Steve got down from Conah's back and joined his friends. The bronze dragon transformed into a tall and broad changeling man with golden eyes.
He looked at the party, and smiled. "Step away, if you would."
The party parted for him immediately, and he picked up the egg, dusting it off carefully. He started to leave. The others transformed back to their humanoid forms. The black dragon had been Echo, who Steve had met before. The two golden dragons were two changelings - one man and one woman. The girl's right eye was a shining gold, and so was the boy's left. Claudia and Emori had seen statues of these two: the Primordials of Day, Phoebe and Achaeus.
Conah told the man - Ike - that these people wanted to ask him some questions. They were historians. At first, Ike wasn't too fond of the idea, but once Steve and Conah explained that they had a sick orphan on the way to his house, Ike relented. Conah and the other rider - who'd been called Hadrion - went to meet up again with Callan and Alaion. Echo went home, not caring about the situation. Phoebe, Achaeus, and Ike teleported the party and Confidence to their home.
The landscape had changed vastly from the meadows and grasslands outside of Ozryn. Here, they were surrounded by a thick, coniferous forest with some snow still lingering on branches and the ground. Before them was a large, wooden mansion with dragon carvings throughout it. In front of it was a 15 ft. stone wall, and iron gate. Once inside, they realized how huge the property inside the wall was: rolling fields, orchards, and a red barn. Ike let them into the foyer: a huge room with two staircases on either side. There was a living room off to the left and a dining room to the right.
A young girl in her late teens - apparently human - with black eyes and long black hair ran down the stairs, excited to see the egg. Ike gave it to her to bring to the room. He led the party into the living room. Another changeling came in from the other side. They had long white hair, and the typical white eyes seen with changelings. Ike introduced them as his spouse, Jin. While they talked, Jin went about getting everyone some tea and snacks.
Ike gave them information that they basically knew already, but with a slight caveat: he wasn't there for a lot of the events of The Darkening. He had been suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, and had several alters that he would mentally switch into and physically transform into. The only other piece of new information they learned was regarding Nyx, the former Primordial of Night. Nyx was still alive. In fact, she lived here; Ike considers her another daughter. They also talked a little about how Ike knew Confidence, which had more to do with Confidence flirting with Phoebe and getting sent to Hell - both as punishment, and to get more information as to why he was here. Unfortunately, Hell had not been kind to Confidence.
The players asked about Hekate, and learned more about her reincarnation cycle. She controls her own aging cycle. She remembers some things from some lives but not others.
Steve asked, "When she's... born... from the egg, once she's old enough, would we be able to speak with her?"
"No," Ike said with finality, and a glare that made Steve not want to push him.
"What about Nyx?"
"No, and her specifically not because she does remember The Darkening and would prefer not to. There's a lot of trauma for her there, and I'm not making her relive it."
"Phoebe and Achaeus? Could-"
"No, you-"
"Technically, we don't have to ask them. They could... choose to tell us," Claudia mentioned.
They also asked if they'd be able to stay for a couple of days, to compile their research. They even offered to help around the house. Ike was vehemently opposed, but Jin saw no harm in it. Ike left the room, resigned. Jin offered to show them to their private library, where they could compile what they had and use the books they had to conduct more research. Jin also offered to see if Phoebe and Acheaus would be willing to talk. Afterwards, the twins would take the party to their room.
Jin warned them, "Two things. Don't go into the basement. Off-limits for guests. Don't go to the east wing of the house. That's where the children are, and many of them don't do well with strangers. Kids from bad situations, you know? We'll bring your food to your room for dinner and breakfast and such."
At the library, they found very little that they didn't already know. The most stand-out thing was a book about the pantheon. There was a section on "The Death of Eros," referring to the First Eros. According to the book, Conah Dullane took on the role of Eros when he died. In between those points, there was no "Eros" in the pantheon. It did not explain how the heroes and new gods got their powers exactly.
Steve brought out his secret chest with Confidence's album from the last world and the music player. He and Emori let him listen to the song she'd told him about last session - "Venus." He sat and listened, wide-eyed at his own voice at first, but then teary.
"That's her..." he said. "That's about my little girl... and I haven't seen her in nearly fifty years in this world..."
Emori got to know Confidence a little bit more. She asked why he was still doing this, especially if he missed Venus so much.
"Because then the war may never end," he told her. "Because then I'm going to go back home and fight even more, watch more people die, and what? Sit there, knowing I could have done something? That I could have stopped it? I don't know why our boss picked me, of all people, but... it did. And I've got a shot to change things."
Steve, after some snooping around, found a secret door behind one of the bookshelves that led downstairs. Claudia used the mind of her spellbook to investigate. They found four rooms.
- The first was a blacksmith's forge - unlit and unused.
- Across the hall from that was some kind of workshop with tinkering tools and alchemy supplies.
- There was a huge room that was tens of feet tall (impossibly.) There were these plaques on the wall with names and dates on each of them.
- The last room was at the very end of the hall, behind two double doors. When Claudia attempted to see inside, her magic was dispelled and her senses returned to her body in the library.
They resolved to investigate that area more later, and shut the door just as Jin arrived with Achaeus and Phoebe.
When they spoke to Achaeus and Phoebe, they found that they were in a very similar situation to Ike. During the time of The Darkening, they were both inside of Phoebe's body. Phoebe had been fifteen years old at the time. Achaeus had existed as his own person, but he died when he was four. Phoebe had manifested him as an alter after that. Since they ascended, they'd been split into two people.
After that, they retired to their rooms. They had some speculative leads about The Shard, but nothing solid. Emori tried to contact the System, Mod, or any other coworkers, but to no avail. Claudia did too, and she had a frightening bit of success.
~~~~~
Claudia found herself in a black void, led to a spinning green cube.
She asked who it was, where she was.
"This is Hack Space," it said, in a deep voice that was entirely inhuman. "And I am the System Hacker."
"We need help. Would you help us?"
"I could... if you could give me something I want. And you have something I want."
At that moment, Claudia felt something squeeze tightly around her heart, something warm. It was pulling her away from Hacker, and she had the terrible feeling that she needed to get out and get out now.
~~~~~
Claudia woke up. She, breathing heavily, told Steve and Emori what she'd met. Steve had met Hacker before - done a mission for it in exchange for a special reward in the last world: a key that could open anything except a door.
Confidence knew Hacker. He took off his armor and partially his shirt. He revealed a small tattoo on his back, nearer to the left side of his neck. It was a green version of the symbol to the right. They had seen this symbol on him before, in the sixth world, but he didn't know what it was then.
He explained, "I'm a Warlock. Hacker is my patron." He pulled his shirt back up. "And I'd prefer if you didn't tell the boss about that."
The party wanted to know more; they wanted to know if Hacker was good.
"I mean... no, but it's not bad either, not in my experience. It's the creator. It codes the worlds. It's the reason I look like I do, you look different from me, and the reason the world looks like it does."
That night, everyone went to bed. Confidence had his own separate room. Emori used her mind link to telepathically apologize to him; she felt like she'd overstepped her boundaries in the library. Confidence accepted the apology and he didn't seem upset about it.
Ever since the sixth world, Confidence had been singing a song that he couldn't remember. Emori had recently learned that the song had words, and she was getting the song, line by line. That night, she asked him if he'd written the song. He said that he had written half of it.
When she asked who wrote the other half, he replied, "Venus's mother. Her name was Lydia."
"Was?"
"Was."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's been some time now, I've grieved."
"But I made you think about her."
"Yes, but I think about her every day. And even though she's not there anymore... I'll always have a piece of her in Venus."
~~~~~
Credit to @ijaymendell inspiring this awesome campaign!
Credit to @bandcat5313, for the creation of the character: Venus Milton. Additionally, thank you to her - the original homebrewer and DM for the world of Eushora. This setting and some NPCs were inspired by hers.
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