Session 49

* Old Town Cathedral

### PCs:

Gar, Goldie, Dandy, Solly, Nyahduke, and with a special guest appearance from Arik!

### NPCs:

* Dulan Goldsunder (Goldie's good for nothing cousin)
* Hearthhold 'Hearth' Waywonder (Dandy's Mother)
* Eyebright 'Bright' and Jollymeet 'Jolly' Waywonder (Dandy's Brothers)
* Umbra/Codex/Luminus (An ancient triune deity of Forgotten Knowledge/Memory/Secret Knowledge)

**Previously...**

## And Now...

### Memory Trapped

After descending into the dark trapdoor inside the Cathedral each character awakens separately inside one of their own barely-remembered memories.

* Gar is inside a childhood memory of him fighting another child, and loosing his cool under the influence of Fluffy.
* Goldie is also in their own childhood memory. They are attending a dinner with their at family being hosted by her Dwarf family. They are being tormented and ‘othered’ by the dwarven kids, including their Cousin Dulan.
* Dandy is ‘playing bandits' with her brothers, but is being quite rough with them. Her mother takes her aside to the healers' building to show Dandy the consequences of war. A man in one of the beds is in great pain after being injured by a hunting trap.
* We do not visit the memories of Narduke or Sully- possibly because they don’t tie into Arik (but also because the players weren’t available at the beginning of the session to play those characters).

In each case, the scene is recursive. As soon as it ends or is brought to a close, it resets and begins again. Subsequent versions of the scene will occasionally 'amp up' the emotional drama.

Gradually, Arik *(his old character played, once again, by scott)* begins to infiltrate these memories, but in a way that is not immediately recognizable, as it takes considerable effort for him to interrupt and break into the vignettes. Initially, he appears as a distorted, 2-dimensional construct of indistinct patterns and colour, but gradually, as his friends began to recognize him, his image became clearer and clearer until he was able to fully manifest himself again. Arik has been trapped in this dimension for hundreds of years. Knowing his old friends were fated to come here, he allowed himself to become trapped in the memoryscape so he could help his friends escape their own.

Back in the heroes' individual mindscapes, Gar decides the child in the memory is a Strangehaven vampire in disguise and attacks it with Fluffy. This causes parts of the memory around him to start to crumble. Arik arrives on scene and, seeing Gar, starts to recall who he is and begins transforming slowly into an image of himself.

Goldie tries to find various ways out of the Dwarf dinner, but every way she goes leads back. She tries to focus and ‘create’ a door from her memories which works. But when she opens it, Arik is there and still unrecognisable. She recoils from him and gets hit by a maliciously thrown ball. Claws come out.

What Dandy assumed were the injured man’s screams of pain in Dandy's vision take on the other-worldly scream of Arik trying to communicate. She gradually begins to realize there's a second sound behind the first, that it's not coming from the wounded man, and that nobody except her can hear it. Gradually, it begins to resolve itself into recognizable words. ‘Let me out’ Arik yells.

”Let me out is also heard from Arik by Gar, but Gar doesn’t trust the indistinct manifestation and strikes it down with Fluffy. The strike ‘frees’ Arik, revealing him to all inside their own visions. Gar’s vision starts becoming more distinct as his memories flood back.

Goldie hugs Arik, and ages back to adult in the vision. They start to wish the memory away, but Arik tells them they needs to remember, and it all comes flooding back.

”Arik, You sexy, sexy Idiot!” Dandy exclaims upon recognising him. She flies into a flurry of manic activity, pestering Arik with questions and introducing him to her mum and chiding the injured man when he tries to interrupt before returning to the questions and giving him a hug and more questions. She's about to launch into an exhaustive retelling to what everyone's been up to since Arik vanished when she sees a mysterious, shadowy figure. It gives Dandy the heebie-jeebies, so she throws the ornate assassin's dagger (the one she took from the assassin way back at the Broken Beacon, See Session 1 & 2).

The dagger shatters everyone's visions into shards which rain about them as they fall...

### Another Version of Old Town.

Arik, Dandy, Gar and Goldie find themselves standing in the streets of Old Town. However, this is not the same Old Town - it’s clearly more new, has no mist, has people walking about and seems to be stuck at a permanent dusk. Sully and Narduke are spotted nearby, but every indication seems to indicate that they are fighting their way out of similar memory traps.

The citizens seem overly relaxed, even sleepy. The buildings are filled with slumbering people propped up onto makeshift beds, chairs or couches Goldie investigates the town more closely and discovers several runes and other clues. They figure out they are inside a god’s personal dimension, almost certainly Umbra’s. Unfortunately, interacting with the runes has an effect on her memory changing a part of her history and making her remember a past event in a completely different manner *(This has the effect of permanently re-writes one of her character motivations)*.

At this point, Nyarduke emerges from the Memory Trap *(Jono arrives RL)* and the group makes introductions and recaps.

### Inner Sanctum

The party makes its way to this dimension's version of the Cathedral. After a considerable amount of effort, the heavy door to the Cathedral in this realm is opened and the group enters. They are immediately set upon by shadowy creatures which look like the image of Umbra (heavilly hooded and robed) but each bearing a ‘drama mask’ showing a different expression.

Rather then fight them, Duke choose to embrace one (‘loneliness’) in a huge hug, weakening its resolve. Goldie calls out to Umbra, challenging them to show themself. The shadows coalesce into a single figure, 8' tall and crackling with godly energy.There follows an exchange of words. It becomes clear that Umbra has trapped them inside her own realm, and is surviving without worshippers by devouring the memories of those trapped in here with her, whether they were here at the point of the initial curse, or whether they've wandered into here since then. Attempts to convince her that this is wrong fall on deaf ears, as Umbra is driven by their own self-loathing and despair.

Multiple party members attempt to break through by trying to show love for Umbra, by embracing the god in a group hug but they respond with “I deserve this” (indicating their self-made-prison).

Gar is getting impatient by this point and threatens the god with Fluffy, but Umbra bats it away effortlessly, causing the sword to fly 30’ away. However Fluffy managed to draw blood from a small cut on Umbra's arm and begins to drain a rivulet of blood from their arm.

Someone suggests to Umbra that she could derive power from increasing people's memory retention instead of simple stealing them. Intrigued, the god experiments and gives her huggers back lost memories. This process seems to empower Umbra, but not by a lot.

The returning memories spark a flash of insight in Dandy and she remembers hearing a story which would seem to explain Umbra's true identity and how she ended up where she is and in the condition she's in. She reminds Umbra that they were once ‘Codex’ a god of keeping memory, whose job it was to remember and record everything that happened, keeping that information in a vast archive of all knowledge.

Dandy pulls out the Star of Timmoran and gives it to Umbra. She places it into her bell and unleashes a memory wave affecting everyone. All memory comes flooding back. Everyone remembers everything they have ever experienced.

Gar recalls some of Fluffy's memories, including all the people who have ever wielded it. Angry at what feels like a mental invasion Gar picks Fluffy up and strikes the Bell (theoretically the Heart of this dimension, if not the God itself). At the last instant, Nyarduke steps in and takes the hit, but the bell still rings out, shattering the dimension around them and leaving everyone in a blank white plane of nothing. Duke lays close to death, with Fluffy through him, still feeding off his life force. Fortunately, Goldie recalls the potions of Complete Healing each of the party was given as a gift from the University and Nyarduke is stabilized.

The god stands over them now in a new form. No longer shrouded but divinely wonderful, shining and androgynous. They tell Arik that he is too long gone from the world to return with his friends and may choose to go onward to the great beyond, or join as a divine servant to the new god - Luminous.

Exhausted after countless centuries inside the dream realm, Arik decides to go to the afterlife, and before leaving says farewell to Nyarduke. He has already said goodbye to the others once before.

*[\* - GMs Note: With Luminous returning to the world as a god of Memory people’s ability to recall facts is improved Terrinoth-wide. All characters in this adventure have their recall further improved, and may gain a free upgrade on any roll to recall memory as a permanent boon].*

### Aftermath

The party (including Solly) is returned to the world and find the citizens of the dream-old-town now in Old Town proper. It is daytime and clerics are tending to the sudden returning citizens as best they can. The curse of Strangehaven's Old Town seems to be lifted, the ‘Lost’ are no longer lost and there is no sign of the fog.

Someone recognizes the characters and it is remarked that they have been gone 3 weeks. Despite it appearing to be one night, This means that they have only 6 nights now remain before the opening of Conclave in Archault.

### Continued in Session 50....

- 20xp (595)

**Quote:** *”Can I have a blue die for killing my wife?”* - Arik.