Session 10 - Beneath the Sea of Stars

----
Bridge to Asphodel
* Massive lights are rising out of the Sea of Stars (strangely familiar to Castor)
* Caspar Loach unlocks part of his memories about the Sovereigns (he was tracking them down)
** Empire of the Millennium
** Ugashi, Sovereign of Annihilation
** Asa, Sovereign of Might (killed by the party in Session 2)
** Pacoradon, Sovereign of Wrath (also known as the Knight of Ruin)
** ???, likely the wielder of the "Door of Mercy"
** ???, powerful shapeshifter with the ability to transform into individuals whose blood he consumes
* Sylas call
** Says he wanted to check in after he heard about the Sword Saint's death
** He was going through the flipstone logs and was about to do a backup, but saw that there was a call to your flipstone in Alvalan from another phone that was a few feet from you - the logs are fully anonymous though, even to Sylas
*** Orhid (daughter of King Orhid) was the fortune teller that you met in Alvalan, who called a few minutes after she disappeared from the booth. Since she had the King of Asphodel's flipstone, it is likely that he had already been dead for several days.
* Book says: "You need to remember your sin." > flips to two pages covered in black bars, which the book seemingly breaks
** Right page: "Traveler of the Fragments"
*** Traveler + Dream Veil + Black Bars: "The Serpentes Fragment exists in close proximity to the Oscillation, and is home to the Door of Absence. The Door, wielded by a being who would later be known as the Traveler of the Fragments, would use his abilities to temporarily remove the impenetrable barrier between Fragments, and gather other Doors on his way to fend off the Demon of the Outer Ring. However, his struggle would be for naught, as the Demon’s strength was unparalleled. In a desperate, last-ditch effort, the strength of all the remaining Doors would be channeled into him, and he would use his powers as the Door of Absence to bring forth his own Fragment from nonexistence, outwards from the Oscillation. One free from the Demon's reach, where its inhabitants could live simple lives. Where their dreams and desires could be realized. And in that single moment, his attunement to the Strings would be second to none. He would create his own Veil around the Fragment: the Dream Veil, imbued with his own Resonance. The Veil could manifest the desires of the inhabitants of the Fragment into existence. The stronger one's desire, the greater its manifestation would be. And this Veil, existing at the outer edges of the Fragment, would be painted with every fiber of the Traveler's being, in a pattern that would fill the empty cosmos with trillions of brilliant lights that could be seen far and wide. The true nature of these lights, of course, would be subconsciously skewed in the perception of the Fragment's inhabitants. They would appear to them as, what they would call, stars. And just like what would be done to their perception of the Veil, the Traveler would subconsciously hide any truths relating to the Fragment's creation, the Demon, and anything else that would disrupt the peace that he so deeply desired for the beings of the Fragment. These truths wouldn't be hidden from those who had no interest in the world's creation and the secrets surrounding it. Those highly attuned to the Strings, however, wouldn't be able to fully perceive such truths. They would, for the most part, stay hidden to them in the form of subconscious redactions. But the Traveler put everything he had into the creation of the Fragment; there was barely any remaining Resonance distributed to the beings living within. None of them would be able to truly influence the Dream Veil.
***Satroleyes: But after the Traveler's sacrifice, time would pass. The wave of absence from the Traveler, that had been used to bring his new Fragment into existence, had erased something else in the process: his conscious mind. Now in a "comatose" state, his physical body would drift throughout the darkness of the Fragment for eons. However, 4.5 billion years ago, it would eventually collide with a planet that had formed around the Fragment's single star. In the collision, both the flesh of the Traveler and much of the planet's rocky surface would be torn off. The gravitational pull of the Traveler would eventually cause the rock to settle around his body, and pieces of his flesh would fall to the planet's surface (look up when the Moon was formed). His overwhelming attunement to the Strings gave his body peculiar properties; he contained so much Resonance, that his flesh essentially acted like a "physical manifestation" of the Strings. And these "Strings," now disconnected from the stabilization provided by his body, would condense and rotate in their instability. They would come to be known as "satroleyes," meaning "flesh of god."
***Comet: The remaining Doors would face a similar, painful fate. Their physical forms had been shed by the wave of Absence from the Traveler, and were compressed into a spiraling mass of energy that had been absorbed into the new Fragment. This mass barreled through the Fragment, and eventually neared the Traveler, who, having destroyed his mind, subconsciously detected it as a threat and sent it away; transported it through space and time in the direct line of the nearest celestial body in an attempt to destroy it, where it would spontaneously manifest in its upper atmosphere one thousand years before the present. Another wave of absence would follow this event, so powerful that it would shatter part of the Dream Veil. However, in the destruction, some of the Traveler's Resonance that had been imbued into the Veil would be scattered throughout the Fragment, and returned to its inhabitants.
****Before the Veil's partial destruction, attunement was minimal and no one could influence it. But after, even though Resonance had returned to the inhabitants of the Fragment, the half-destroyed Veil was essentially "broken" and did nothing.
**Left page: "Demon of the Outer Ring": 
***On the top of the page is writing from the book: "It's the same with Ugashi. Monsters aren’t born, they’re created."
****It's referring to the fact that Ugashi and his monstrous last-known form were brought about by the actions of King Nephret and his Door of Dominion - not by his own will
*** Dark black bars, which the book breaks
***Identity of the Demon: "The Helix Fragment exists at the furthest edges of the domain of the Strings, on the borderline between the Sphere and the Outer Ring. It contains a habitable planet home to a continent called Weltonia. The Demon of the Outer Ring was a human being brought into existence by a man named Markoth Redbane through a draw from the Deck of Many Things (Jack of Hearts - Knight), and was sent away through a subsequent draw to a region of space in another dimension (Ace of Spades - Donjon). Because of the Helix Fragment’s existence on the borderline of the Sphere, he was sent to the nearest separate dimensional space: the Outer Ring. Due to his recent creation within the furthest Fragment from the singularity, he would be born with zero attunement to the Strings. Thus, he would surpass infinitesimal odds to not be obliterated by the endless negative energy within the Outer Ring, and would instead absorb it. There, he would merge with the body of Lily Caspia and use her as a vessel to cross the Veil, with her abilities as a Sylph of Harmony. He would contort into an indescribable, monstrous form with a dozen eyes - one pair for each individual he hated most: the group of six that stood around laughing, as he underwent unimaginable suffering. He would then proceed to obliterate the Helix Fragment, along with every other Fragment in existence."
Asphodel 
*A white and gold city, with towering marble spires, exotic woodwork, and people dressed in many different types of golden regalia
*Market district
**People are looking at your group, and when you arrive at the magic item shop, the man says "Castor..."
**"My friend's magic shop recently burned down, so I wanted to start another one in his honor" (he's talking about Quincy)
**Bertrand's Sorcery Boutique 
***Castor: Ring of Identity
*** Mar: Clockwork Spyder
***Rip: Soul Sword + Bardic Boombox
***Maryn: Tempest Staff
***Voladore: Inferno Engine
**See someone wearing a cloak with a pair of closed eyes on it
** As you chase him, a random person is seemingly obliterated on the street
*Library
**Books only go back a few decades
**Not much information about the royal family of Asphodel
Meeting Orhid
*Enma Valdara walks out of the castle with a swathe of guards
**Short gray hair, maybe 70 years old
**He's wearing pretty heavy armor, so you can't fully see his face
**Mar's Door of Ruin abilities appear to show that he doesn't have a soul
*Enter the castle, and meet Orhid (princess)
**Says that dinner with the king is about to begin, and Voladore and his friends are invited
**Banquet (Castor fish :D)
**The King doesn't show up after a while, and Orhid says that you should go see if he's alright
*She takes you through a route through the castle, to what appears to be a cellar door with an old staircase inside, and she starts walking down: "Father spends much of his time down here, in his study."
* As you're walking down the staircase, Orhid starts talking:
**"Voladore... what do you know about the founding of this city?" > "Gamereon, our founder... a great man. He built this city with his own flesh and blood, brick by brick. And after it was done, he warned us of something. That one day, an evil spirit would appear, in the form of a man. He said that we could have to capture the man and dispel the evil within him, through any means necessary. That by doing so, this city would flourish with wealth, magic, and power. You were never made aware of this, but that evil spirit did indeed return. As man who we needed to keep in the city, to make it truly become a city of light... a city of stars. A man who would then become wanted across the world, to prevent his friends and family from looking for him, and instead think that he simply ran away, to evade capture."
*The staircase ends, and you're beneath the castle
** In the center of a vast open space beneath the castle, is a dim, translucent hemisphere, covered in strange symbols. On the top of the hemisphere, facing inwards, is a large steel beam pointing down to the sphere's center. And in the center, sits a man. A man with long brown hair, and deep brown eyes.
**And then, a flash - like a bolt of lightning, striking the man. It lasts a few seconds, and then... thousands of tiny sparks of light fly out past the hemisphere, and rise up and outwards, through the cracks in the ceiling. And she walks towards the hemisphere. On the right, Jaegar and Catherine Loach are unconscious in a jail cell. On the left, stands the corpse of King Orhid, crucified against a wall.
** She says: "But Gamereon, too, has returned. And he even talked to me. He said that there is no place in this world for you. That you and your friends are just a nuisance. But he says that I have a place in this world. A purpose. I'm different. Like there's a light, a mercy inside of me that can shine in even the darkest of nights."
**You look around, and suddenly, a ring of people surround you. Cloaked in golden uniforms, with a symbol that Voladore recognizes: the symbol of a secret faction within the city of Asphodel.
**She says: "They're here to make sure you don't run away - my symphony of lights." > She turns around to face you: "You don't get it, do you? Why don't you try asking the book - why you'll die here today. That Sword Saint didn't believe me. But you should ask, why you and your friends will be buried beneath this city for eternity.
After Combat
*As Voladore raises his blade high above his head, he feels something. Like his soul is shining with an unparalleled radiance that he's never felt before. He brings it down, and then… an eruption of blinding light fills the empty space. And as the light fades, you look at the woman before you, but she’s gone. None of you feel any changes within you. But Voladore's mind is filled with a clarity he's never felt before; he doesn't know how, but he knows what has just happened. He has just annihilated the Door of Mercy from existence.
*Caspar Loach says: “Voladore... I didn’t believe him when he told me. Your grandfather, the Door of Justice before me… He told me that when he was much younger, a power had ignited within him beyond anything he’d ever felt before. He was traveling through Alvalan, and Corcoran’s old king was going insane, slaughtering civilians. As he was passing through the area, they fought. It was the same as it is now. A brilliant flash of light, and then… he was gone. Like King Nephret had never existed in the first place.”
*But then, you hear something: a snap. And you look towards the hemisphere, in the direct line of sight of your attack against Orhid. And you see a crack forming. One, then two. And then, the entire thing shatters. And the man inside sits there, motionless.