Session 73: Tympi's Abandoned Creation

General Summary

Finally, an End to these Halls

The session began with a brief encounter against some shadows. The slime-covered sandstone walls that surrounded you were shaking, crumbling and entire sections had already been seen to give way as you traveled. You vanquished your foe, and you were quick to continue moving forward or risk falling into whatever void lies beyond. Your quick movements seemed to suggest to the shadowy, Unblinking Sein that surrounded you that you were afraid of something. Anxiety, fear, terror was building up inside your minds and bodies. Your progress was halted by the unexpected appearance of a Mothling. Unlike any other mothlings you had seen, this one seemed to be made of metal, and any moving parts on its body were mechanical in nature. It looked like someone had built this mothling, or heavily modified an existing one. ALT tried communicating with it, but the creature ended up just attacking the robot, and the rest of you were quick to put a stop to its aggression. You moved forward again, but you were also stopped once more as another section of hallway collapsed into the unknown below. Long, shadowy arms with horrific claws at the ends of them reached up towards you all. More fear was building up, and as you fought these strange Shadow Claws, a jester manifested nearby. Where it came from was unknown, it just appeared as if from the Unblinking Sein itself, and it began to attack. It wouldn't be able to hit anyone though, as you struck it down before it could truly act. Zombies also appeared, their faces and plagued flesh were familiar to most of you, especially Frode, but they too were all defeated. You moved to the other side of this newly formed chasm, and, as you rounded another corner, some of you saw a familiar face up ahead.

Simol peered around a corner at the end of this last hallway. She saw those of you that were moving ahead of the rest of the group, and she began speaking as she stomped her foot and slammed her staff into the ground. “HMPH, To think she’d remember me as this, and not as I once was. Though, Time is of No Matter. You! We’ve been debating. Which of us is closest to Tympi right now?” As she spoke, and as you all discussed this while challenging her right to ask such things, two more familiar faces emerged. Croak and Ilven both appeared before you all, standing behind Simol, and it was then that ALT chose "Ilven" as the answer to this question due to her physically being the closest based on her current position. You all continued conversing with each other, and your demands of Simol were largely ignored as Croak stepped forward next. “The only me that ever knew her was not me at all. So, why am I even here? Who am I? Am I Me? Or am I The Oni? Is there a difference at this point?” These questions were met with confusion, and rightfully so, but with no answer given and more arguments being had, the final speaker stepped forward. “This darkness and fear… Why? What could have compelled me to do such a thing?” More confusion, arguments, and even anger was starting to build, but an answer was not given. Instead, ALT chose to change their answer to the first question, and it was amended to be "Simol".

Waking Up in a Village Abandoned and Dead

The next thing you new, you were waking up in The Hidden Village of Mothlights. Your companions were all around you, waking up as well, but DAN was still motionless, breathless, and dead. Nobody came to greet you, no one was there to thank you or sing your praises, and, as you looked around Tympi's House, you realized that there didn't seem to be anyone here at all. You found a bloodstain in Tympi's bed, and there were signs that the place had been uncared for for quite awhile. A thin layer of dust covered most things, and the trees outside were looking rather...thirsty. Further investigations also revealed that the orchard, normally filled with flowers that each bloomed into a Mothling at some point in their lives, were all now black, wilted and dead. ALT stayed behind to clean up a bit, and the rest of you ventured into the village to investigate further. No mothlings could be found anywhere in town, at least no outside, and the home that you chose to look inside proved to be mostly empty as well. You learned that something had definitely swept through here, something that they knew was coming as there were spots clearly hidden it at some point. Food had been left, rotting, and some clothes even fell from some hurriedly packed luggage. There didn't seem to be any sign of a struggle, just a sign of hurrying, and no apparent reason for the sudden disappearance...other than, perhaps, the dead orchard. A body was found inside this house, but not that of a Mothling. Kaswink's corpse was still lying in the bed of the person that had been watching of her, keeping her in shape and clean, preventing decomposition, but it looked as though she had been drained. It was possible that time was the cause, and that the mummification could've been caused by the preserving balms, but Hysteria also found that only part of the body had been shriveled. It looked as though she were slowly being drained, and whatever was doing so eventually just left. You chose to return to Tympi's House and inform ALT of what had happened. After doing so, you discussed the possibility of resting here before heading out into the world. Whatever had happened here couldn't be reversed as far as you could tell, you had failed this place, but it's possible that the rest of the world could still be saved. You each had some downtime before sleeping, including Hysteria stealing whatever magical items still remained.

In the 'morning', you woke up feeling well rested. You performed the familiar actions of leaving through a tree of your choice, but you felt some resistance. Bobcat was able to push through, however, and the familiar blinding light filled your vision. The light started to fade from your vision, and it was replaced with something unusual and uncomfortable.

The walls, floor and ceiling were all made of glass. Below the floor, you could see Tympi, though she was much larger than she should be. She was curled up with her knees and elbows tucked beneath her chest, her face was buried in her hands and she was visibly shaking and weeping. As she cried, black tears could be seen slowly flowing up from her head and towards the floor. They wrapped around the walls, towards the ceiling, and they pooled in the center on the other side of the glass. On the tiled, glass floor that you all stand on, you can see a much smaller, more normal-sized Tympi. She was surrounded by spirits of Contentment and her eyes were closed. She appeared to be unconscious. The noodly appendages of these spirits were slowly phasing through her, wrapping around some unseen, spiritual morsels before retreating to the open air once again…only to return to their original position inside her motionless form.

The Whatdigo Appears!

A plan was had to retrieve Tympi's Body and find a way out. Hysteria incapacitated several of the spirits of contentment with some hypnotic images, the rest of you started to attack the still moving spirit, and Frode started to drag Tympi away. Breaking her connection with these spirits caused them to suddenly awaken, and combat became far more sticky. As these contentment spirits fell, Unanswered Questions from past encounters began to appear in their place. It started with a Whendigo, then the arms of a Whydigo, but with some careful positioning, you managed to avoid anything else spawning and instead triggered the entrance of yet another one of these bizarre spirits. A (or perhaps the?) Whatdigo appeared at this time.

Shadows billowed around asymmetrical arms and legs. One leg ended with a claw that looked like it would be more at home on a bear, though it was must larger with nails that reached out to needle-like points. The other arm ended in a different claw, this one was closer to a crab claw or a pincer from some similar animal. It too dripped shadowy ichor, and it would grow and glow as the other claw damaged you. One of its legs ended about halfway down the other in a sort of stub, while the other leg was longer and twisted around itself to form a strange sigil. It had a total of three heads, six eyes and four mouths. The head furthest to your left had only one eye, the central head had three, and the right-most had two. The mouths were evenly split, but each had different types of teeth ranging from blunt and square to massive needles, each almost the size of a rapier.

The Whendigo continued to age you while building up shields made from this lost time, arms continued to slam and cut through you while grabbing onto anyone they could reach, and, meanwhile, this Whatdigo began to absorb everything about you. It was All Consuming, and it was slowly stripping away at your abilities. It would also attack anyone near it, and it had the bizarre ability to remove itself from the minds of anyone near it. Bobcat ended up walking away from the creature to attack something different, only to suddenly see the Whatdigo again at the end of his turn. All the damage it dealt, all the stats it had stolen were slowly also building up in its massive crab claw. Energy was billowing around it, building up until it was finally released as a devasting beam of light and darkness that spiraled around each other. Frode and Hysteria were hit, and the resulting damage knocked Hysteria unconscious. And that's where we ended.

In-game Date:
Daulok 27-28, 308

Report Date

22 May 2023

Primary Location

Howdigo

Secondary Location

The Hidden Village of Mothlights

Related Plots