Session 2: The Artifact

* The Valiant rises up from Pryzonis, breaches the Everfog, and begins to ascend through the atmosphere. A vast expanse of stars and colorful nebulas fills the sky. In the distance, the massive black object turns to pursue them, firing bolts of green magic as many smaller ships take off from it and streak toward the party.

* The party can better make out the massive black ship. It appears to be cloaked in a shifting fog of dark shadow, but through it they can see some sort of spiky spires -- sails perhaps? Or masts? Or towers? Many of them jut out haphazardly from the dorsal and ventral sides of the enormous craft, which seems to be at least a mile long.

* The Valiant is too close to the vessel to accelerate to spelljamming speed. Deg turns to flee, but it's clear that, damaged as the Valiant is, it will not be able to outrun it.

* Deg is asked who the pursuers are and what the artifact is. Deg isn't sure the nature of the artifact but he believes it has the power to help them escape, and says he believes the pursuers are Neo-Vessics -- at least, that's what the contact who gave him the artifact told him. He also mentions they are in the "Outer Rim".

* Suddenly two shrike ships painted gray and emblazoned with the mysterious faction's insignia rise up from below, having ascended through the Everfog, and are right behind the Valiant, only a few hundred feet away and closing fast -- they seem to be far faster than stock shrike ships. Deg shouts to get to the turrets and to the artifact in the cargo hold, and begins to spin the ship to give the turrets a clear shot.

* The party quickly learns to use focus turrets to amplify spellcasting, and the Valiant trades ballista bolts and amplified spells with the shrike ships, causing damage to each ship. Mysterious warriors and elite warriors are controlling ballistas and focus turrets on the shrike ships, though their ballistas seem to be more advanced, able to fire multiple bolts in succession without requiring reloading.

* Varec scores a lucky critical hit against one of the shrike ships, ripping apart its stern along with one warrior and one ballista, and sending it tumbling chaotically. Several enemy warriors leap from the vessel toward the Valiant, gliding along the Valiant's gravity plane, trying to board it. One of them is a variant of elite warrior not seen before, with dark armor, a purple visor, and an orange cloak.

* The second shrike ship approaches on the port quarter and rams the Valiant, inflicting colossal damage. The party engages its warriors, who attempt to board the Valiant across the ram.

* Meanwhile, in the cargo hold, Star has discovered a small, ancient-looking chest covered in elaborate bronzework. She tries to open the lock and bash it open, but is unsuccessful, so she brings it to the deck where most of the party is. The party manages to bash the chest open and sees a stone box, and bashing that open as well, finds a white stone cube with a three-clawed blue handprint on it, which is glowing blue. Torman identifies that the object is a magic item with the power to teleport the Valiant and up to 100 additional ships a great distance through space. Meanwhile, Deg dives the Valiant, shaking off the second shrike ship that rammed it.

* As many ships of the enemy fleet close in on the Valiant and the party continues firing at and fighting the encroaching warriors attempting to board, Torman places his hand on the glowing blue claw rune, selects a direction (south), and takes the Valiant and the entire damaged first shrike ship with it.

* As the ships move through space and time, the party begins to have visions...

* The instant the hand touches the glowing blue handprint, each of you feels your stomach leap up into your chest, as if gravity has disappeared. Time seems to slow to a crawl, and you feel yourself start to disassociate from your own body, as if your mind has decoupled from your head and begun effortlessly floating away. The world begins to slowly spin in front of your eyes, and as it spins faster and faster, you start to see glimpses of other places -- but not just see them; for a moment, you feel you are actually standing there, like you've phased briefly into a different version of yourself.

* A serene beach with teal water and pink palm trees, waves lapping at white sand as two colossal moons hang in the sky.

* An asteroid field where two enormous blue reptiles fight in zero gravity, knocking asteroids away left and right as they do, smashing each other into a cascading cloud of shards glimmering by the dim light of three green suns.

* A gothic castle hewn from jet-black obsidian, built into a snowy mountaintop, with airships docked above it, tethered by tense ropes against a howling blizzard.

* Over and over, they come. The experiences of being you in other places begin to flash through you so fast it becomes a blur, and as they do, your sense of time begins to change as well. It feels like you've only been experiencing this for a split second, but also for an unbearably long time - hours, weeks, even years maybe? - and these paradoxical feelings somehow coexist. Have you only phased into a handful of versions of yourself, or thousands? Tens of thousands?

* A sense of pervasive deja vu, of the surreal vertigo of past and future coexisting, flows through you, and you realize some of the glimpses, just a few here and there, are of your own past! Bits and pieces flash by - maybe one where you stood up a bully in your village as a child, maybe one where a cherished mentor gave you a crucial piece of advice right before you took on a challenge. The one commonality, you realize, is they all came just before moments of triumph in your life.

* And then, you have one final vision. A glimpse of a life not yet lived, but one you feel deep in your soul is you, but you in another time. A time not yet come. This is what you see...

* Each party member experiences a glimpse of themselves in the future.

* [Menny (Who was knocked out at the beginning of the battle but comes to shortly before this)]: You see your djinn patron, with arms crossed. The djinn says, "Impressive. You’ve made it farther than I thought. But I have one final task for you, before…", the vision flashes to black, and you blink, and suddenly you're back on the Valiant.

* [Varec]: You see an elaborately dressed elf man. He smiles down at you. "Hmph," he says. "That’s a neat trick. But let me show you a better one…", the vision fades to black, and you're back to your own body.

* [Razznoff]: You see Boonish. She smirks. "What a surprise seeing you here. And you’ve brought just what I need, the…", the vision fades to black, and you return to yourself.

* [Torman]: You see Pa. He looks up with an astonished expression. "T-Torman? Is it really you? Oh, why didn’t you…", the vision fades to black, and you're back on the ship.

* [Serenity]: You see a Plasmoid. It says, "You're very close to what you've been searching for. What you need to do is...", the vision fades to black, and you return.

* [Star]: You see a Thri-kreen. It is telepathically speaking to you. It says, "Ah, I know where you can find one of those. First, you need to...", the vision fades to black, and you're you once more.

* [Locke]: You see a Githyanki woman. She looks up at you and gasps. "You’re... y-you're..." She blinks for a moment, and then yells: "COME FIND ME! THE CLOCK SHOP AT 5438 NEBULA AVENU...", the vision fades to black, and you're back on the ship.

* The visions have stopped. Everyone comes to, back on the ship. But the stars are different. Instead of purple and pink clouds of nebula, you see shimmering, gray-blue wisps. You're also surrounded by what appears to be sea life -- great whales that twist and wind about, schools of tiny fish that flutter around, their long fins fanning out behind them as they frolic through three-dimensional space. Filling much of the background ahead of you is a planet -- an enormous blue gas giant, with rows of swirling cloud moving slowly across its great spherical form.

* And in front of it, in the far distance, there is what looks from your vantage point like a small rock. It seems to be surrounded by tiny objects, some stationary, some buzzing about. They are many hundreds or thousands of spelljammers, docked, tethered to each other, spreading out from the asteroid.