S1 E52: The Fork of Destiny
General Summary
In which a puppet show is seen, and something unsettling is perhaps brought home...
- Entering the House of Mysteries, the party is immediately uneasy at the unnatural silence and relative calm in the room, a large, dilapidated space that looked to have once been something grand - btu they all understand it was never anything other than this, and at the same time, it was never even this; everywhere they look, wherever their eyes happen to land, the details are subtly different. What was a lamp is then a vase of flowers, then a small stack of books, then a different lamp, each time their gaze returns to the spot.
- The only sound is the soft swish of fabric caused by two intensely ugly puppets fighting each other, Punch-and-Judy style, in a nondescript grey box decorated with bland flowers and paisley patterns. A mirror sits over to one side of the room, and two other exit doors beckon.
- In order to proceed, the party fiddles around with the mirror a bit before finally pointing it to face inward at the puppets, which hop down and begin trying to turn the mirror to face the party; in the shenanigans, Zalock is momentarily turned into a puppet, until the mirror once again restores him. Once the puppets are defeated, a withered man appears to congratulate them on their solution to the puzzle, such as it was. He identifies himself as Doctor Toll.
- The party explains that they are seeking a tuning fork to be used to escape the Far Realm, and Doctor Toll says the best place to find a fork is in a kitchen. When they ask about the temple of Borem, he nonchalantly mentions that he's not familiar with it particularly, but it will probably be along shortly.
- The room goes into a cartoon, just as the party opens one of the doors to discover someone has cast a 'magnificent mansion' spell in the area beyond it. The rest of the party goes into the mansion, but Blizzard elects to ascend to true dragon form in the Cartoon reality, becoming an enormous white dragon that would fill the room they were in, except that the room seems to adapt to whatever is in it.
- The rest of the party urges him to follow them, but Blizzard is in his glory. Blizzard's dragon form attracts a young Deep Dragon, an ugly, unpleasant creature sometimes found deep in the underground of Tergaith. Blizzard tussles with it before finally following the rest of the party, begrudgingly, into the Mansion; the feeling of being the dragon, even as a cartoon, is one he wont soon forget.
- In the mansion, attended by dozens of unseen servants, they get a normal and delicious hot meal, a long rest, and eventually, a tuning fork. Mae uses it to dial in to the Prime Material Plane and they return home, to Blood City.
- Several things that perhaps weren't so clear before become clear once they return and recount their adventures with Fremont in Tavager's Tavern. First, that Borem's Temple - and perhaps Borem himself - are in the Far Realm - implying that the extraplanar threat isn't just a cosmic alignment - or misalignment. The Far Realm itself is threatening Tergaith's continued existence. They can go back, or they can wait for it to come here.
- Second, perhaps more distressingly, the party finds that each of them has their own tantalizingly incomplete memories, or half-remembered thoughts, of some other member of the group besides those they can all name and account for. This is someone they each remember well, and several knew and feel as though they cared for this person deeply; one remembers attending a wedding, another remembers the birth of this friend's child. But the specifics about person himself - or herself - has been wiped clean, without a trace save for these suspicious recollections.
- Interestingly, Alura, the newest member of the group, also has these memories despite only having been with the group itself for a couple of weeks, though she can't recall anything specific, just fighting alongside the person. Male or female is unknown, race is unknown, where they came from or where they went - unknown. It's not Keebler, or Rongo, or Lorfel or Xi Shi or Yoxi or Cind - over the months many have come and gone, and the loss of some felt more keenly than others, but this feels very different from those.
- There is the possibility--the probability, even--that this is a false memory, some vestige aftershock of so much exposure to time, or the lack of it, in the Far Realm - a place where time, incidentally, appears not to have passed at all relative to Tergaith. But the other unsettling possibility remains that in fact someone else was once in the group, all along, and if this person went with them on this Journey, he or she never came back from the Far Realm.
Missions/Quests Completed
- Escape from the Far Realm
- Puppets of the House of Mystery
Character(s) interacted with
- Dr. Toll
- Fremont the Cat (In a Skeleton)
Notes
The House of Mystery :
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