OttD Session 34: The Game of Orbs, Part 1

General Summary

Vun Roade is unavailable due to a family emergency. His presence at the The Tree on the Hill is retconned. He disappeared with the others but did not reappear with them.
The good news, however, is that Adoven Verdonnet (formerly Adoven Woodsoul) has returned to the game. We begin the session with him in the woods. His hand bears a Brand that displays an orb above the number seven. He is in the woods near a clearing, and hears a Kenku singing The Hanging Tree from The Tree on the Hill.
Next to the tree is Pestle and Zerrof. They are both winded from their previous encounter in Acheron. They are prepared for a fight, but soon it is revealed that the singing is coming from the tree. There is a small Kenku child by the name of Kiri sitting in it. She has a rope tied around her neck and was about to tie the other end to the tree branch when she saw the two people standing next to the tree. She excitedly introduced herself, including the title "Conduit of Consequence". She gets very excited when she realizes her two new friends are "Onesies".
When she mentions the term "Onesies", both Zerrof and Pestle receive Brands of their own. They bear an orb, the letter B, and the number 1. As this happens Adoven Verdonnet's brand updates to include the letter B as well. Kiri tries to explain the Training Games to the "Onesies", but she is only four and a half years and therefore not very good at explaining things. She tells them they are trapped until the game ends, and that The Tree on the Hill is a very dangerous place to be.
Adoven Verdonnet gets the party's attention, and they rush over. At around this same time Tornac appears in the woods behind Adoven Verdonnet. The party all meets up, including Kiri excitedly dive bombing Adoven Verdonnet with hugs and shouting loudly. As they are trying to calm her down and Adoven Verdonnet is trying to explain what is happening, Kiri is shot in the head and dies instantly. The attack appears to have come from the opposite end of the clearing, where a sniper is hiding in a tree. When she sees the party she swishes her cloak back and it sprouts into a pair of large golden wings.
What follows is chaos. Kiri's body disappears. Tornac attempts to charge at the assailant, and Pestle tries to stop him. Adoven Verdonnet gets a better idea, and uses Dimension Door to take himself and Tornac to the shooter. They have not seen guns before, but that is indeed precisely what she has. She proves to be incredibly dangerous, sometimes making as many as eight attacks per round. Pestle becomes a giant eagle and rushes to join in the fray. Zerrof hides, and sends a swarm of animated rocks to assist.
The tide is turning as Pestle arrives, but now that there are three people instead of two Adoven Verdonnet can't teleport them back out of combat. The shooter talks at a few points, and seems to know who everybody is. They fight for some time until Tornac passes several difficult persuasion checks in a row and talks/seduces her into lowering her weapons. She is very confused about all this, as she says things are "wrong". Adoven Verdonnet arrived "early". Tornac is "unusually gallant". She expected to have seen both Mazu and Griffon by now.
As she is listing off things that seem off and asking questions about them, Zerrof's animated rocks arrive and deal over 50 damage in a single round. This initiates combat again, and she flees into the woods. Tornac, with the aid of Expeditious Retreat, gives chase. Adoven Verdonnet, Pestle, and Zerrof meet back up with each other.
Tornac eventually chases down the shooter, and by an incredible series of persuasion checks convinces her to join the party at least until the end of the current game. This cannot be made official during a game, so it is a temporary and highly uneasy alliance, but it is an alliance nonetheless. Tornac has been to Vigrid before, and has a 28 on his brand. The shooter is Aria, and has an 82 on hers. He takes her back to the others, and expository conversation ensues.
To summarize, Aria and Adoven Verdonnet are both time travelers. Aria in particular seems to have much more experience. She even carries a coded notebook so she can keep track of what she has done and "find the path". She is very vague about what she is trying to do, but there is apparently some sort of disaster after this one and she is trying to find a way to end Ragnarok without causing problems for her people in the future. So far she has gone back in time 53 times without success. The party takes a long rest in a nearby cave. During the night a dragon can be heard in the distance, but Aria and Pestle make no move to investigate.
In the morning, she explains to the "Onesies" that the whole point of these games is to determine the fate of the world. The participants are serving as jurors of some sort, and Aria says that the way this story ends determines how the next one begins. She also threatens to kill the party if they "choose poorly". The session concludes there.

Report Date

31 Jan 2020