ADVENTURE LOG: February 2, 2019

Mysterious Island

The party members find themselves on an earthberg floating in midair high above the forest below. It is an island unto itself, dense with jungles and teeming with wildlife. While exploring the jungles, the adventurers happen upon a grotto overgrown with hanging vines. It is a shrine to Hecate, triform goddess of necromancy. Others have passed through here before, making the same perilous crossing of makeshift rope bridges, and leaving coins, candles, glass trinkets, and other small offerings at the foot of the goddess—but why? Ven tells his companions that the symbol of Hecate is sometimes associated with the Thune, the three sisters of prophecy. Legend holds that Titania, queen of the seelie fey, banished the sisters from the Feywild for maliciously sowing discord in the Summer Court. The sisters, cast out into the Material Plane to endlessly wander, vowed to have their revenge someday on the beautiful and capricious queen of the faeries. 

"The Thune revel in trickery," Ven cautions. "A solitary drop of their blood is said to bestow terrifying insights."

He goes on to tell how the sisters cover their faces with soiled veils. Those who encounter them, he adds, are overcome by a compulsion to lift their rags to see what lies underneath. But to do so is perilous. Their faces are disfigured with revelation.

"The Forbidden Lore holds that in ages past, foolhardy adventurers traveled to the Feywild to bring back the head of a Thune," says the cleric. "They say the broth makes a potent elixir of seeing." 

Undeterred, Nik inspects the statue for hidden writings or any other secrets it might hold, and in doing so, she disturbs a nest of giant centipedes, which have made their home in the shrine. A rustling issues from mossy crevices of the grotto as eight poisonous insects swarm out of the rock, setting upon the adventurers. Korric draws his knives and makes quick work of several of the beasts. His companions finish off the rest. The party decides to travel east across the island, keeping to the outer edges of the dense feywild jungle, avoiding the interior.

Adventure Highlights 

• The party comes upon a massive overhang of granite rising out of the jungle like a toppled idol. Sant'oka gathers mushrooms and edible plants to feed the hungry travelers, and there is a fresh spring here. while refreshing themselves at the spring, they discover a cave beneath the overhang. Venturing into it, they find some prehistory cave art depicting smiling terrestrials, a white sandy beach, and blue ocean. There are words blazoned across the image in a language that Korric identifies as twentieth-century English. He translates the message for his companions: "Just another day in paradise," "Delicious and refreshing," "Ice cold Coca-Cola sold here." The gunslinger identifies the words and image as a billboard from the days before the advent of Megadeath. As the group stands in fascination before this ancient image, they realize that the cave home to a pack of giant rats, but manage to escape unharmed.
• Traveling on, the group comes to a gloomy lake with a small island in the middle of it. There is a small shrine on the shore of the lake, and a small boat for crossing to the island. The waters are scummy with green algae. A noxious vapor rises from its surface. Ven believes that the small lake island is a site of pilgrimage—a place of oracle—and that the Thune will be found there. The party decides to go there to consult the seers about Darkmanse.
• On the island, the group finds cement steps leading down into a tunnel that serves as a crude dwelling for the Thune. However, they encounter only one sister, not three. The hag attempts but fails to ensnare Ven in a dark bargain in exchange for the secret of how to find the secret door into the catacombs on the Darkmanse island. She fixates on Nik, telling the tiefling, chuckling darkly, "You seek power." Nik brushes off the hag's words as nothing more than Thune trickery—and then, sensing a trap, unleashes an eldritch blast on the deceitful witch. The other two sisters have been here the whole time, concealed by a cloak of invisibility. The three sisters, denied their dark bargain, try to kill the adventures, and die in the attempt.
• At the back of the Thune's dwelling, piled against the back wall, are bundles of old clothes, boxes of metal junk, old shoes and hats, a pair of ancient velvet chair, an ornate table, stacked boxes of tarnished silverware, dented pots and pans, moldering old carpets, crates of rusted and broken tools, troves of worthless costume jewelry, and scores of mirrors of varying shapes and sizes—the Thune, it would appear, are hoarders. Korric finds some moonstones and gold pieces, which he takes. The party discovers a metal door behind the Thune hoard. Nik attempts and fails to pick the door's lock. Sant'oka assumes bear form and smashes it in. Behind the door is a 1960s-era fallout shelter, perfectly preserved and looking exactly as it did at the time of Megadeath. Inside the bomb shelter, Korric takes a book that seems out of place on a shelf full of military survival manuals. It is The Tibetan Book of the Dead. As the group explores the underground shelter, the dial of a shortwave emergency radio inexplicably glows to life and broadcasts a public-service message from the very moment when the bombs of Megadeath rained down on North America. The ghost broadcast reports that Washington and New York have been destroyed, and makes reference to the president and his key military and civilian advisers escaping the destruction on a battle cruiser serving as the emergency seat of government.
• The party spends several days on the lake island recuperating from their adventures. During this time, Nik boils the head of one of the Thune in a pot and drinks the potent broth. In the hallucinatory throes of the Thune Sight, the succubus has a vision in which she is wandering the tunnels and halls of the Darkmanse necropolis.
• Nik's Vision. She sees sepulchers and crypts, ornate mausoleums and reliquaries. She finds herself following some priests at a distance. The priests, dressed in black robes, walk in procession down a winding stone passage, swinging their censers before them in clouds of incense as they recite litanies from their chapbooks, their mysterious words echoing through the dead halls. Nik realizes that this is the unceasing prayer of Darkmanse, the ritual cleansing of the dead, who lay silently all around her in the darkness of the catacombs. One of the priests glances back at the tiefling and gives her a welcoming smile. He is young and has a shock of red hair. In her vision, Nik knows that she and her companions can trust him. The party should seek him out, for the virtuous young priest with the red hair is a certain ally in their quest to complete the divine purpose of the Greening. Then the vision shifts and Nik is standing before a mighty throne. Two of the infernal names are inscribed on the seat of power: YALDABAOTH and SAKLAS. Nik realizes that this is the throne of the maker himself. She ascends the royal dais and takes her rightful place on the throne, claiming the seat of power for herself. Before her are her companions: Korric, Ven, and Sant'oka. They lie dead at her feet on the dais. When Nik recovers from the Thune Sight, she is forthcoming with her companions about what her vision showed her. "Alternate thoughts came flooding to me soon after," she adds. "Now Korric was sitting on the Great Throne. Sant'oka and Ven seemed wholly under his command and I was gasping my last breath on the floor looking up." The tiefling gazes off toward the eastern horizon, where the Darkmanse lies waiting. "I have been deeply disturbed by these thoughts and visions," she tells the others, "so I deemed to share them."