CW / TW for the following:
- Description of severe injuries / slight gore
- Conversation about potentially killing someone who's in a lot of pain and suffering.
These sections will be written in blue text, if you want to skip them.
~~~~~
Present Party: Aria, Claudia, Emori, and Steve. In addition, this party has a guest player. This player's character is Amaya, an air genasi grave domain cleric.
Setting: An old western European style city, called Meloire, capital of the kingdom Vesperion. The party spends most of the session at the royal palace, but also briefly visits town.
Emori and Amaya returned to their apartment in the royal palace, where they stole Claudia from the room, and brought her to the infirmary. They needed answers about Confidence, and how he'd ended up here, hurt like this. Emori had no luck trying to contact anyone from the System Space, but Claudia had some luck earlier. She was hoping that she'd be able to do it again. Unfortunately, this time when Claudia reached out, she didn't get a response at all. They all had to remind themselves that Moderator had warned them at the start of the world that the coworkers were busy. They'd be less inclined to respond at this time.
 |
| Symbol frequently associated with Hacker Typically bright green in color |
~~ CW BEGINS ~~
When they tried to turn him over, Confidence screamed in agony. His fists tightened in the sheets. Checking his back, where they'd seen the mark before, it was hard to tell if anything had been there. The skin was burned, much like the other parts of his chest they could see. Additionally, there were huge open wounds on his back. They weren't bleeding, but they were there. They quickly put him back to where he'd been, though now his body shuddered and his breathing was labored. Emori cast Cure Wounds quickly, apologizing in tears as she tried to comfort him again.
Claudia cast Detect Thoughts on Confidence, and discovered that his surface thoughts consisted of two major things: confusion as to where he was and what was going on, and how much pain he was in.
They asked for Calnan to come by, knowing that he was a paladin. When he did, he claimed to have done everything that he could, but nothing was working.
"How long has he been here?" Emori asked.
"Nearly a year now," Calnan told her.
Claudia was the first to bring up the idea that perhaps it would be better to "save" Confidence this time by ending his suffering. Amaya tentatively agreed to that. Emori didn't want it to come to that yet, not if there was a chance they could actually help him if they all worked together. Claudia was actually surprised Calnan hadn't killed him yet.
"Well... he's a friend," Calnan said. He looked to Amaya. "We met him several times in our day. I thought that maybe I could help him. Magic isn't a common talent here. I'm probably the most powerful caster on the continent, if not in the entire world."
Emori, Amaya, and Calnan all put every bit of healing each of them had into him, hoping it would help more. There was definitely some improvement. Again, those pinpricks of green light appeared in his sockets.
Calnan recommended, "You may want to look away."
He reached for the sheet covering Confidence's torso, and looked underneath. His whole torso from mid-chest down had no skin. Everything inside was visible, burned, and could be seen writhing and working. As good of a caster as Calnan was, healing was not necessarily his specialty. Regeneration magic was also not something that existed in his world, and he knew that was something he would need to fix an injury like that.
~~ CW ENDS ~~
It seemed to be easier for Confidence to speak telepathically, though even his inner voice sounded like it was in pain. He didn't say much, only that everything hurt, and he repeated the phrase "I think I broke it" both out loud and in his mind.
Claudia and Emori asked Calnan if the Shard had been broken, but he claimed that it hadn't.
"But... 'I think I broke it...'" Calnan repeated.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Amaya asked.
"Perhaps... What if 'it' isn't a Shard? It's possible for Shards to be broken, but not likely or easy to accomplish."
"'It' could be the boss," Amaya mused, referring to the System. "What if... he's why it broke?"
Emori and Claudia reminded them that the System didn't know how it broke.
"That might not be true," Amaya told them. "Boss can lie. There are also just... some things the boss refuses to acknowledge. I mean... if you're everything and all-powerful, do you want to admit that you lost to him?"
"It's possible," Calnan agreed. "But it's hard to tell for sure right now."
Before he left, Amaya asked Calnan if he'd go on a walk with her. The two of them made plans to go after dinner, as long as Calnan could take his dog, Wrinkles, as well. He also recommended that the party go into town and have a look at his sister's bakery. It'd been in his family for a few generations, and she ran it now.
Claudia and Amaya decided to go and pick up a few sweets. Emori insisted on staying with Confidence for now.
~~~~~
Meanwhile, Steve and Aria explored the castle. On their way through, they ran into two young halfling girls. One appeared to be about ten or eleven, and the other about five or six. Wrinkles the dog was chasing them playfully. The girls stopped when they saw Steve and Aria and they introduced themselves as Princesses Celeste and Pippa, with the former being the older of the two. They'd heard from their father that there were guests. Both of them were happy to provide a tour of the castle
On their tour, Steve and Aria were shown where nearly everything was and kept entertained by the two young princesses riding on the back of this oversized mastiff. The dog remained calm and friendly with Steve and Aria, despite what they were told it was able to do: delete a person permanently from the System Space.
Steve and Aria also learned that other transmigrators (or "guild members" as Calnan was referring to them) who'd been here before had been violent towards Calnan's family, and that it didn't go well for those transmigrators. Even guards seemed to distrust the two of them being alone with the young princesses, but Celeste insisted it was okay.
After their tour, they met up with Amaya and Claudia. All four of them went on to the bakery, to see what they had to offer.
|
Cassandra Folkor |
They met Calnan's younger sister, Cassandra. She got them any pastries they desired. They also remembered to pick up some for Emori.
Amaya asked, "You're the king's sister, yeah?"
"I... Yes," she answered, though hesitantly.
"What's his favorite?"
"Well, in recent memory, he's always really liked pumpkin bread. But when we were kids, it was always red velvet cupcakes."
Amaya ordered one of each.
"They're for him? The king?"
Amaya nodded.
"Would you... tell him that I wish him and his wife a happy anniversary?"
"Were you not invited to the party?"
She shook her head. "Calnan had a... bit of a falling out with the family. We don't speak anymore."
After enjoying a bit of a second breakfast or brunch, Amaya decided to deliver everything back to Emori and Confidence in the infirmary. The other three went looking for a toy shop in town, and bought toys for Calnan's children. Their reasoning was that their father would have much more trouble killing the party if his children liked them.
Upon delivery, the children were ecstatic. The party discovered that Calnan had five children: twin sons, and three daughters. Louisa was the eldest and the crown princess. Claudia, Amaya, and Emori had met Alistair this morning on the way to the infirmary, and now his twin brother, Alexander. Then Celeste and Pippa were the youngest. The children were overjoyed and excited about their new toys, and Louisa thanked the party very much for their generosity.
~~~~~
 |
| Confidence Milton but when he looks much better (Art made by me, using Heroforge) |
He called her by her name once, even though she hadn't told him. It was the first time he'd ever truly recognized her.
She gave him water, and a piece of a croissant dipped in strawberry jam when Amaya came back from the bakery.
Amaya told Emori, "His daughter Venus loves strawberries. He told us that once."
Emori also recalled their seventh world, where he was a pop star. He'd written a song about a girl named "Venus" (though he didn't know who that was; he claimed to have made her up.) Venus was described as someone who loved strawberries, and smelled like them too.
When he ate the croissant, he managed to swallow it. Looking at him, if he had eyes or tear ducts, Amaya and Emori guessed that he would have been crying. All he could say was that he'd fucked up so badly, and he thought that he'd broken it.
Emori refused to leave him. She stayed in the infirmary with him, holding his hand.
~~~~~
That night, Calnan found Amaya, and the two of them went on the walk he'd promised her. They ended up outside, in a garden filled with white roses.
 |
| King Calnan Everhart Gnome Oath of the Crown Paladin Former Transmigrator, Amaya's former party member (Art made by me, using Heroforge) |
"Yes. Do you remember the bouquet of them I'd received from the huntresses of Artemis? In our sixth world?" He gestured to the flowers. "All of these are grown from clippings from that bouquet."
Along their walk, they spoke of quite a few things:
- They recalled good memories they had in worlds together.
- Amaya asked what happened between him and his family. Calnan had always had a rocky relationship with his brother, Kerrick, but he adored his sisters, as far as she knew. He admitted, "After my parents died, I... didn't really care. I wasn't well, I didn't know how to grieve properly because... how can you grieve knowing that our lives in this multiverse matter so little in the end? My family wasn't pleased with my reaction. My other sisters left home, Kerrick hated me more than ever... Cassandra runs the bakery and I don't see them."
- At the end of that discussion, Amaya threatened to kidnap him and take him to Cassandra herself, to which he wished her good luck.
- Amaya admitted that now Calnan was the only person she had left in the world who could still even remotely care about her.
- Calnan added that this new party was here now, but she dismissed him, saying, "They have each other."
- Amaya believed that there was some part of Calnan - the Calnan she knew buried deep inside him. He insisted that there wasn't, but she couldn't (or maybe didn't want to) believe that.
- Calnan confessed that in this fight against him, he wanted them to win. He wanted Amaya to have her second chance. He wouldn't go easy on them, but he'd give them multiple chances.
- Amaya scoffed, "What am I supposed to get out of a second chance, Cal? I'm not going to get what I want anymore." And he answered, "You'll have the opportunity to find some other happiness, which is more than you'll get wandering a white void. You can get that if you quit too."
- Amaya insisted, "I don't want to kill you, Cal..." To which he replied, "Then get me to yield. It'll be a bit harder, but you won't have to kill me that way."
- "I want you to win," he said, "because I want you and them to be the ones to end it for me. Because they're good people. Better than we ever were."
At the end of the night, he walked Amaya back to where she was staying with the others, and wished her a very brief goodnight.
~~~~~
ART LINKS
https://www.reddit.com/r/characterdrawing/comments/ai9bnz/oc_my_gnome_fritz_was_in_need_of_some_full_body/?st=JR6ECXEO&sh=7e52ea2f
~~~~~
Credit to @ijaymendell inspiring this awesome campaign!
Credit to @bandcat5313, for the creation of the character: Venus Milton. Thank you to her as well for joining us on this leg of the campaign with her character: Amaya.
No comments:
Post a Comment