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Session 183: Day 6 of Veliadan (4/17)

The ghost that was attacking Diana has been banished by Hava. All Diana can see is the ghost knight that stabbed Yolov. She and Adrin move to flank the ghost, Diana breathing lightning and force on it.

As she does, the heavily armored ghost flickers in and out, but she notices it just evades the full brunt of her draconic breath attacks. When the force breath hits it, she sees a piece of its latent existence falls off and underneath there’s a slight flash of sun-kissed tan skin before it covers over with the ghostly armor.

There is something about this at first brush now that she’s extremely close to it and nose to nose with this creature. She realizes it doesn’t look real, not like ghosts they have seen before. There’s something like paint strokes painting its armor.

She says it’s not fake, but it looks like they’re fighting a painting. She calls out to Yolov that magic is afoot.

Yolov looks a little apologetically at Az, who just got him out of danger. He moves forward to study the ghost and realizes there are not spirits of undeath or something that has died here, this is a manifestation of someone having a really deep and strong negative response to something, so much so that it has manifested as resentful spirits. What he realizes is that whoever has accidentally summoned these, at the very core of this, is whatever this person is trying to hide from. They’ve constructed this mental story book shell over what is the source of this anxiety and fear. They could kill all these manifestations, but if they don’t quell the source, these manifestations will keep coming.

Yolov summarizes this to the group, registering as he does that the feelings he got hit with when he was attacked by the ghost are the same struggles that this person is grappling with. As Galowen asks if he can kill it, Yolov says he can but more will keep coming.

Then he Misty Steps to stand beside Audacity, taking in the scene. K looks up and says that she didn’t do this. Yolov blinks a little and says that’s good to know before he looks at Audacity.

Galowen moves to flank the death knight as Glyn charges and attempts to stomp at the ghost knight. It manages to dodge while Galowen attacks as well. Each time the ghost flickers and avoids Galowen’s sword.

The ghost knight solidifies in order to attack, first striking Diana, then missing Galowen, and then dissolving Glyn into nothing.

When he cuts into Diana’s shoulder, she feels that sting of the necromantic energy and is struck by the biggest mistake she ever made. She thinks of those adventurers that attempted to rescue her from Razad and who became his prisoners instead. She sees all of their faces and wonders how many died and how painful it was. How many of them would have lived grand, fulfilling lives if she’d just been braver?

Audacity looks at the body in the room. He recognizes the person as a frequent flyer of the monastery. He has been at this monastery a handful of times. He doesn’t cause a lot of problems, but he comes, gets a little bit of rest, and then goes off and leaves. He knows Mikos and Teoshi have discussed him at length. Mikos believes he’s someone who should make up his mind while Teoshi says he clearly needs a safe space to stay and rest. It was a small point of contention between them.

He is a jade stone genasi with cracks on his face. Audacity knows he goes by by Jay when he stays in the monastery. It clicks immediately to Audacity that when they checked for everyone, they probably didn’t realize Jay had come back.

Audacity asks K if Jay is dead and she says she doesn’t think so. He asks if she knows how to get rid of this, gesturing at the pouch. She says she doesn’t. She just thought it was undead and it clearly isn’t.

Audacity asks Yolov about spirits, and Yolov says it’s not spirits, but emotional manifestations of someone. He says he’ll leave it to Yolov then, just don’t touch it, and then goes and heals Jay.

Jay wakes up with a gasp and tells him that it spat him out. He points at the pouch and says it took him where there was a lot of screaming and then it spat him out.

Hava looks at this manifestation and says excuse me before she backs up towards Az’s side of the courtyard. Then she casts Moonbeam directly upon it. When she does, the beam of light temporarily shears off its hip and its leg of armor and half of its other leg. Underneath it is like a shadow of someone’s legs, not very long but muscular.

The body doesn’t match up in shape to the armor as Hava spies a flickering tail. She calls out that there’s someone inside.

Az has been looking through Medrash’s eyes at the scene inside the room. He says through Medrash that if it needs to be taken away very quickly, he can do that. Audacity says that he doesn’t think anyone should touch it and it might make things worse.

Az says okay as Medrash headbutts Audacity. Then he blinks back to himself and sees the partially unarmored ghost as it rearmours itself. He gestures at this thing and asks if they’re killing it.

Hava says that they’re fighting the shell and there’s someone inside. Galowen helpfully says that it’s like a lobster shell and Hava compliments him on the description.

Az holds his action, ready to cast Eldritch Blast if the knight attacks.

Diana, hearing this, also holds Adrin’s and her own attacks whenever the knight attacks.

Yolov looks at the pouch and tries to cast Dispel Magic upon it, but nothing happens. He asks Jay what exactly happened, and Jay says he touched it and it grabbed him. When Yolov asks if he means physically and mentally, Jay says he doesn’t know.

Yolov calls out to the rest of the group that he couldn’t dispel magic on the pouch, but he’ll try to keep investigating.

Galowen studies the knight, trying to figure out if he can peel off the armor. He attempts to grapple him instead, neither of them moving with grace, but he wraps both arms around this thrashing death knight. The knight is trying to attack him, but he’s pinned. Galowen manages to headbutt the helmet.

The helmet slips up. Where the legs were colorless, the face is almost the same. There’s an effect like they’re looking at someone’s shadow. The face and the silhouette is just familiar.

Diana squints at it. She gets the feeling she’s seen this shadow before. There’s nothing unnerving about it but instead familiar. This is the shadow of someone that she knows.

The death knight tosses his head. The flickering unsure mask and shell seems to defy the law of physics. Instead it floats like pieces of paper do, the helmet fluttering to the ground. Underneath the helmet, the shadow has curling horns and hair pulled up into an up do.

It’s never hard to pick out the silhouette of your friends. For a jarring moment, Diana looks at the colorless void and sees Audacity’s shadow. With its turn, it attempts to break Galowen’s grapple but Galowen holds it tighter.

Audacity looks down at his own shadow which is still with him. He smacks the bag with his stick and tries to destroy it. When he does, he feels something like a jolt in his gut. He feels every ounce of his willpower trying to keep himself here, but he fails.

Yolov watches Audacity disappear.

Audacity opens his eyes and he’s in a very small, very dark room. He’s very, very little. It’s hard to tell at first if he’s shrunk versus become a child. In the darkness, he feels something touch his face. When he looks up, there’s a very simple, rough hewn jacket hanging on a hanger. Standing stock still in this closet, he realizes he’s small and hears outside the closet someone begin to scream.

It is a high, terrified and agonized screech.

There’s a raw, visceral fear and this terror and grief and confusion that hits him as he doesn’t understand what’s going on. For a second his brain grasps onto that and for a small, slight moment he knows that his mom is screaming on the other side of the door. Then he realizes that can’t be what’s happening.

He looks down at himself. He realizes he’s not himself. He is a young child, maybe four or five. He’s short, little baby hands, a deep amber color that he realizes isn’t his skin tone. It’s not that he’s not physical, it’s that he’s made of something different than he’s used to being made of. He’s not a tiefling here.

Audacity tries to look through a crack in the door. He gets a nauseating wave of fear but stomachs through it as he looks through the crack and sees a young woman in her early to mid twenties, with long golden hair tied back, either human or elven. He looks just long enough to see a flicker of something in the darkness barely lit by the moonlight filtering in. He hears something wet, and feels something hot splatter against it.

Out in the courtyard Hava watches as the shadow struggles within Moonbeam. The armor sheers off again, and this time it stays off, revealing more of Audacity’s shadow. Hava wonders if this is harming Audacity even as she casts a healing spell on most of the Hooligans. When she looks over, she realizes Audacity is gone. She casts Sacred Flame at the shadow, searing it with radiant damage and rending apart the armor.

Now there is a perfect image of Audacity’s shadow, unspooling at the edges even as it kicks its feet. Every bit of it looks like Audacity, but it’s not a perfect recreation. She can see the weapon and armor are different even as he completely unspools and disappears.

She looks at Galowen and says what the fuck. He says he knows less than her.

Yolov casts Detect Magic. He gets the same terrible resentful energy, focused on the pouch itself. But there doesn’t seem to be anything inherently magical about it. It’s the central point of the resentment.

When he uses Mage Hand to open it, there’s nothing inside.

Yolov knows this is an overflowing feeling of someone’s terrible feelings. The origin of it is going to be a person. He lifts it up with the Mage Hand and tersely tells the group that Audacity hit this pouch and vanished. They should show this to Prior Mikos immediately.

Within the dreamscape, Audacity hears footsteps moving away. All he can hear is his own breathing. And then he can hear someone else’s breathing right beside him. When he wheels around, there is a young child about the same age that he seems to be, part genasi. The kid says to close his eyes, that will wake them up from the dream. Audacity asks how that works, and the kid says they don’t know, but when they squeeze their eyes very tightly then they wake up from the bad dream.

The kid demonstrates and then makes a disappointed noise when it doesn’t work. They say that they don’t like this dream. Audacity says he should see what’s outside, but the kid stops him, saying that he can’t. They didn’t go outside, because they were told to stay in the closet.

Audacity asks why. They say because they’re supposed to protect him. Audacity asks if he was here when this happened. The kid says no, he won’t be born for many years, but they were meant to protect him. But if they stay right here until morning, people will come and find them.

Audacity says he understands, but right now when they’re older bad things are happening too.

The kid says then he should close his eyes. It’s just a dream. It’ll be over soon. They can’t tell them what’s out there, they didn’t look. When the kid doesn’t say anything else, Audacity stares at the kid and asks if they’re keeping secrets about him out there or just secrets about themself.

The kid looks at him with big huge eyes and says they don’t know. They really don’t. Please don’t be mad at them. He can look outside if he’s not mad. Audacity says he’s not mad, and the kid wrings their hands together and says Iosh will be home soon.

Audacity says he doesn’t know Iosh. They say he knows Iosh, Iosh will be home soon. He finds them and they’ll go to the city together. If they close their eyes, then Iosh will find them. Audacity asks what will happen if he doesn't close his eyes. The kid says that they didn’t want to see it or hear it, they just had to smell it.

Audacity crouches down next to the kid. He closes his eyes. He feels that same pull in his gut drag him forward. He can feel sunshine on his skin. When he opens his eyes again, he’s a teenager. Standing next to him is quite visibly what Mikos must have been as a teenager, all slender and skinny.

Outside, Yolov is marching across the courtyard with the pouch in his Mage Hand, gesturing for everyone to follow him inside the prior’s office. Behind him, Jay is talking to K about how their names rhyme, and is undeterred when she says that isn’t her real name since his real name isn’t Jay either.

Inside the office, Yolov holds out the pouch and explains the situation to the prior, who argues that it must be a ghost before understanding that this pouch is filled with resentment. They explain that it belonged to a person who was murdered by Tralu, one of Audacity’s first responsibilities to the monastery.

Mikos touches the pouch and disappears as well.

Mastery looks worried, saying that he isn’t responsible for the prior vanishing. Ambition is stuck on her brother being stuck in a bag as Hava and Yolov keep poking at the pouch and Yolov tries to question Ambition about this Tralu.

Within this dreamscape, Mikos appears beside Audacity and grimaces at reliving their fourteen year old life. They tell Audacity that his friends explained about the resentful energy and dryly remarks that meditating away their bad dreams apparently won’t work.

They ask how many ghosts there were and after being told four, they say that they think they know what’s happening next. They walk down an alley and after a beat Audacity follows.

Outside, Yolov is grilling Ambition about Tralu and Mikos and Audacity. She tells them about Tralu murdering the person and his execution being Audacity’s first official duty to the monastery.

When it becomes clear that the rest of the Hooligans want to go into the pouch, Yolov hastily jots down a note explaining the bag, the dangers, and who to contact if they don’t come out within a day, for Ambition and Mastery to hold onto. Then the party disappears into the pouch, skipping the murder of Mikos’ mother and moving forward to the next memory.

Mikos explains that they and their brother did what they had to to survive. They stand at the edge of the alley as the other fourteen year old versions of the Hooligans appear behind them.

Hava is flat-chested, while Galowen is leaner and hasn’t filled out yet with muscle. Yolov is still getting home-cooked meals and still has his baby fat. Diana has long almost knee-length hair and an overbite.

They all stand at the edge of this alleyway as Mikos levels their gaze out and looks at a young man, clearly some kind of musician, sitting at a corner with handmade pamphlets for an inn that he performs at. He collects coins here and there.

Mikos looks back at them and says that they’re all here. They don’t know what negative emotions this pouch thinks they have about this. They have worked hard to…. Mikos stops, shaking their head, and steps out into the crowd, moving through it like they are fluid with it.

Audacity feels something tug at his sleeve and sees that six-year-old Mikos is there. Six-year-old Mikos points at the man and says that they didn’t want to do it. Audacity says okay. He believes them.

Fourteen-year-old Mikos slips behind the busker and then stabs him through, the blade peeking out from the front of the man’s chest. Shadows pour out of the wound, coalescing into Audacity’s shadow once again. It locks eyes with Audacity across the crowded marketplace as people realize a murder has taken place. Their screams go muffled and distant as the kid says they didn’t want to do it, they didn’t want to hurt anybody.

Audacity steps between the kid and his shadow.

The shadow rushes at him.