Session 49: "Who am I?" thought the Moth

General Summary

Pulled Away from Yourself

“When you think of yourself, or perhaps your Self, you have an idea of who that is. You might not know for certain who you are, who you’ll be, or really what that means entirely, but you have some idea and you can recognize that you have a Self to consider or contemplate. The pursuit and acknowledgement of who that Self is is a part of sentience. Now, as you’ve grown you’ve slowly developed this sense of self, starting from an observation of those around you and ending with some idea of both who you are and who you want to be. Imagine, for a moment, that you did not have this ability. When you saw a reflection you didn’t know who you were looking at, you have no sense of goals, ideals, personality, principals, nothing. Just instinct.” The session began with you all slowly drifting off into sleep. Possibly due to the really long, exhausting week you just got through. You had been resting, recuperating, working on projects, keeping an eye out for Simol…and this was a really nice night’s sleep. You had all the memories of finding ingredients, finding Ilven, research, crafting, traveling through time…and they were swirling together into the dreamstuff that would help your mind recover…but that all started to change, as is customary. You each -well, most of you anyways- had your own little dreams to start out. Agave's Dream (Hysteria)

Agave, You meditate or do some light activity for your scheduled few hours much like Hysteria, and during these meditation sessions you too are able to reflect back on everything that happened. You remember sneaking around the battlefield, casting spells to help your allies and shooting your bow and targets to protect Namina and make sure the plan is successful. You remember losing consciousness, falling down the chasm, and finding yourself conscious again just in time to save Ilven and Namina. You remember masks and a banner dripping with the same black oil as the spirit around you.

DAN's Dream (Kaswink)

DAN, You sleep, dreaming of all the things you and your pals did this week. The terror you felt in Thera Relovut as you stumbled through the camp, and you felt anger rising up inside of you. More than anger, it’s madness, madness that comes from both a single source and an entire congregation of prayers. You felt your glaive slice through your first and, for a long time, your only ally in the spirit world… You remember your own grandfather fighting you, thinking you are the very monster you seek to destroy.

Frode's Dream (DAN)

Frode, You sleep, dreaming of it all…the people you saved, the people you defeated, and all the suffering of your friends. You remember expertly flinging warpicks through the air, axes, crossbows, brutalizing enemies that would become your allies, finding the bravery to continue on…your ever-present brothers, and the sadness felt knowing one of them is missing. You remember a carnival, and you remember the ones that loved you.

Hysteria's Dream (Frode)

Hysteria, You meditate, the world around you just as present as the world within your mind. You have distinct memories of dread…of so many people dying, people that could’ve been spared the suffering, people that died slowly, and you remember seeing them come to life once more at Thera Relovut. The fear, the confusion, you remember your spear piercing through enemies, you remember saving Kaswink’s life with prayer through your own suffering… You remember a red string being tied into knots, falling to the ground and forming a spiral.

Kaswink's Dream (Agave)

Kaswink, You dream of a desert, your home, where you grew up and learned about life, death, and family. You dream of the plants filled with blight, rotting, falling apart. They are dying, and the Murids… you remember starving. The need for food that is only quenched with some rotten, blight-filled fruit that no one should really be eating…well that and alcohol. You dream of these same plants, their spirits, and the murids they poisoned coming back to one form: amalgamations of plant, rat and rot. You remember that they would strike you down, blame you for their demise, and you realize that you have failed to save anyone from this blight. But is that such a bad thing? Maybe it's just their time to die. You remember healing your allies, protecting Namina as she completes this ritual, and you remember trying time and time again to cast an important spell…only to fail, again and again.

These memories and dreams continued on through the night until they began to slow, like a tape or record until they stopped completely. Things stopped for all of you at the same point in the dream. Each of you standing at Thera Relovut, the chasm nearby. As everything came to a stop you could see your friends around you, the brightness on each of them being lowered until they were just black silhouettes with glowing white eyes. The same thing happened to the grass, the dirt, and the sky until all you had was darkness, and then you were alone. The loneliness went beyond just having no one around you though, no, your own “Self” was also fading. Vision, you could still see. Thoughts, you could still think. From what you could tell you were definitely alive and conscious, but you didn’t have a You. A question came to mind. "Who am I?" And then it was answered. As if the lights were turned back on, everything sped back up to normal and the dream resumed. "You are who you are, right?" You continued going about your day in this dream, and you each felt something wrap around your ankles. This dream quickly turned into a nightmare as you were dragged away from your companions, each of you pulled in a different direction before you were abruptly stopped and waking up in a panic, drenched in sweat, and staring up at the canvas roof of a tent.

A Crisis of Self

You each heard the crackling of a campfire, but you couldn’t see each other. You were each in different tents, except Tympi as she was the insomniac out lighting a campfire. Something seemed off about it all, something just wasn’t right. Hard to tell what was going on, though you all woke up and found that a fire was lit in your camp. The person responsible was an old friend of yours, Tympi, and she seems bothered by something. A quick observation also informed you that you were currently inhabiting the body of one of Tympi's old friends: Simol, Ilven, Meli, Spenolt, even Croak despite recently taking on a bad case of being dead. In these bodies you had little to no memory of the body's past, and only a vague recollection of your own true pasts. It almost felt like you had been created specifically to speak to Tympi in this strange place. Tympi was definitely bothered by something: She seemed to be struggling with who she is. She needed reassurance on not only who she is as Tympi, who she is to the forest, but who she is to each of these people she was speaking to. She was definitely questioning her identity and what it means to be Tympi.

You all (except Meli who was oddly quiet and still) had things to say about this. What was said regarding Tympi's identity were summarized in my notes like this: Spenolt - sees ilven as yellow/green/brown for happiness, comfort Croak - strong leader, protector of the forest, one who cares about the land, bond with nature is inseparable from ourselves. I would look after you, dear friend. If you are trying to find yourself, there’s no shame in relying on us, you know that. Simol - Didn’t feed them anything, shouldn’t think about such things, making it worse. Do you have a plan to find yourself? Cup of tea helps! Provided tea for Tympi to consume at tympi’s request. Ilven - Does it matter? Does it matter how people see you? How you see yourself? If you spend time worrying about morality or consequences, you’ll never get anywhere. It’s okay to not know who you are sometimes. It’s okay to make mistakes. You’re Tympi. Guardian. If you try to find all the pieces of yourself, what good will you do? WIll you hurt people or yourself along the way? You’re plenty yourself.

As these words were said to comfort this almost godly being, you each began to feel yourselves receding into your new bodies. You were shrinking, and your vision was becoming dark on all sides like a tunnel. This extreme form of tunnel vision worsened the longer the conversation went, almost like something was trying to prevent it, but you succeeding in your quest to reassure her despite this. Everyone, including Tympi, found themselves soon so small and distant from their eyes that they couldn't see or hear anything going on around them. You could still feel your bodies moving though, and you could feel them slowly beginning to dissolve. As your bodies vanished, you could again start to see the world again around you. You could hear the sounds of nature, but you could no longer hear any of your friends or see them. What was left were very small versions of your normal bodies, left behind as these dream-like forms vanished. The camp was still there, though seemed much larger from your new perspectives, and you could see your companions and notice that they were also incredibly small. Your inner Selves were all that remained, essentially. Nuggets of who you truly are. And you are you, right? Most of you had taken on new abilities in this dream. Abilities that better matched an ally whose memories you may have dreamed about previously that evening. The realization that your souls had been shuffled took some time, and soon you also began to realize that maybe you were supposed to be talking about who you are, perhaps to mirror the vision you had recently experienced. While sitting at this campfire you also noticed that the shadows made from the campfire and tree branches would often shift into tendrils that would vanish after wriggling for a moment or be replaced with the normal tree branch that he shadows should've been.

While many of you were struggling with this conflict of identity, Namina and Kaswink (Agave) flew into the air as Kaswink had transformed into a rather large bird. With the help of Namina's magic, this bird had become even large, and the two of them explored the surrounding forest. They discovered that the trees only exist for a few rows before being replaced with rather solid darkness, and that within the darkness there were innumerable other campfires with additional versions of yourselves. The two of them attempted to traverse this darkness, but Kaswink was stopped as a shadowy tendril reached out from the forest and grabbed her talon. She went with the pull of this tendril, but also struck at it and injured it enough that it let go. Despite her freedom, she still returned to the camp to provide this new information. Agave (Hysteria) was intrigued by all this and also went exploring. He turned himself invisible, walked into the forest, and found a similar situation: The trees ended after just a few rows. The darkness wasn't solid, wasn't especially menacing, but it was certainly confusing enough that it caused some concern. Agave chose to risk it and tried stepping into the darkness, but rather than step foot in the strange land beyond, he instead found himself just stepping at the edge of the forest again. It felt like a tendril had pulled at his ankle and pulled him back. Agave reported his findings, and conversations continued around trying to figure out who each of you were. NAD was forced to sit at the center of the group after desparately trying to find a place to be alone, and several of you started to notice strange shapes in the massive campfire. The shapes gradually become more and more clear, and as it was acknowledge and even challenged, it decided to initiate combat.

Combat against the Whodigo won't be recapped as my recording doesn't exist thanks to OBS, but I'll summarize its abilities. The Whodigo had the ability to force two of you to swap places, it could trip or drag people with its tendrils, and it could even counter spells or attacks. It had two separate mouths attached to tendrils which grew from its primary mouths which it used to cast spells. Its primary mouths were used to cast more powerful spells or bite you. Its bite attack was particularly powerful as it struck multiple times with the first two sets of teeth just biting through you physically and the innermost set of teeth literally chewing on your sense of self. Most of its magic was resisted, thankfully, but it still managed to deal a great deal of damage to you all in various ways before finally being defeated.

As it fell in battle it left behind its shadowy tendrils still being cast by the campfire that was no longer there and a locket made of jagged bone. A disembodied voice could also be heard as it finally vanished, "You have come far in this endeavor, but many of us still remain. She will perish along with yourselves as we continue to devour her." The inside of the locket had a cameo depicting whoever happened to be looking at it. Whenever the person currently looking at it looked away from their cameo, they were immediately pulled away from the campfire by unseen tendrils still wrapped around their ankle. The locket also filled whoever was holding it and looking at it with confidence and self worth. When you all had been yanked away from the fire, you were able to see the innumerable other yous being pulled up from their fires in a similar way, and you soon rejoined your Selves in your body wherever you happened to fall asleep.

In-game Date:
Daulok 06-07, 308

Report Date

24 Oct 2022

Primary Location

Tympi's Forest

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