Patient record, 98 A5, aim redacted, 25th, Kithona, 4722AR, exhibit 10, liminal obsession, physical transference of manifested delusion, examiner's note, This is yet another script matrim transcript from an original audio record stored in a sort of arcane crystal. See record 77 G14A for notes on this phenomenon and its applications elsewhere in this investigation. Normally, transcribing the crystal's contents to page would be the work of an assistant.
But the subject matter uncovered in this interview of is of such alarming nature that the contents of the record would very likely induce a panic in the populace, thus calls for the utmost security. Welcome to Ash and Snow. We did it! Yay! We made it to the next episode. You
wanted to follow up on the hair thing?
I wanted more about the hair thing, not cognitohazards.
Heh heh heh. Or memetic hazards, what, we really are just going down the SCP route at this point.
Yeah.
Yes.
Well the bit about the hair, it says, The document stops, a large section having been painstakingly cut out and replaced with another piece of paper, pasted from the back side of the document, that at a cursory review it would seem to be merely fake. We'll never know what happened with the crumbled hair. That's the new question.
Like, we're gonna get out of here, we're gonna get back to Seven Arches, and we're gonna figure out what happened with the hare.
That sounds like a plan. I'm just glad we didn't die.
Can I tell you what I, I was brainstorming a plan if we did die, what we would do for this, uh, for this game. I was gonna
come back as a leshy.
I was, I was gonna make a cleric. I was just gonna make a war cleric. You know, fuck it.
I'm tired of dying, stop.
Yeah.
Only take
heal.
Yeah, I was gonna go full heal.
I thought it would be really funny if, uh, we all TPK'd, and then we like, woke up in Bloodlord's, uh, Jeb,
and
just ran a Jeb campaign. It's like, well, we're changing APs, now we're undead.
We all die and decide, you know what, no, we're not dead, we're circus people now, and we start doing Extinction
Curse. Extinction, undead extinction.
Exactly. You guys can't die. I haven't had Enough fun playing with you yet. We return to Kanipo's throne room, now absent of its previous ruler. The party is wounded, but still alive, as they encounter a new creature, Hubert Hedge. Well, uh, alright you smoothies, uh, I think it's time to, uh, get me out of here. What do you say?
Scandid. Glance over at talking hedgehog, look down at the very broken body of pretty much everybody. Uh, well I think only Vin and Baron didn't go down in that fight. I'm just gonna raise a finger to the cage, a moment, and I'm just gonna slump back against the wall and slide down. When we do anything else, I need a breather.
Yeah, I'm gonna lay horizontal
on the ground for a bit.
Uh, Mia, like, just walks in the middle of both of them. Kinda does some lovely little heals.
How much HP do we heal?
Uh, let me actually do the heal spell and I will tell you how much HP you heal. I feel like I should still cast it.
Yeah, we'd still lose the spell slot. That's okay. I think it's just a d8 for everybody. I believe it's a d8.
So everyone go ahead and roll a d8 for yourself. Yo.
Alright, seven health to everybody.
Yay! I'm
gonna go up to this cage as everyone takes a breath.
So,
who are you?
The name's Hubert Hedge. And, uh, don't mistake me for just any old, uh, hedgehog. I am one of the Fae.
Just kind of glance up from where Varian is sitting. One, I don't have time to write right now, I'm busy putting my blood back in my body. Two, wow, a Fae in the first world, how shocking. And just lowers his head back down.
Ig ignore him, he's, he's hurt. How do I get you out of here? Is there like a key, or a, I don't know, a button? A le a lever?
It's just a small birdcage, you could Probably force it open.
Alright, stand back. Uh, using my weapon for leverage. We will force open! Twenty five. Twenty
five. You snap the latch off of the birdcage. It opens up and Hubert hops out.
How big is Hubert?
Hubert is small. Kind of a little bit bigger than a normal hedgehog. But not by a whole lot. He could. You can't easily stand in the palm of one of your hands. Maybe not Mia's,
but I don't know, are we talking Mia human form or Mia fox form?
Either?
Fair enough.
So he says, Alright, well, I know you all want to rest, but here's the thing. When Kniepo welcomed you home, and he does air quotes, You know that portal you came through to get here? Only Kniepo can make those. Without them, I don't know of any way to get you back to your real home, and you can't exactly walk out, either. The Thin Lands is stable enough, but beyond them is Nightholm. A shadow storm, so that place will scour you dead, assuming the Enkos don't get you first.
I'm, uh, sorry, but I think you're well and truly spiked.
I think there was a part of us that knew it could quite possibly be a one way trip, so
I'm, I'm actually pretty sure that we talked about that before we stepped through the gate.
Pretty sure we did, yeah.
We'll figure out a way back. The Fae are deal worthy enough. They might cost us a name or a firstborn child, but we'll figure a way out.
Some crazy ghost lady tried to murder us earlier. I don't think she was ready to make a deal with nobody.
And we also have to find the right Fae.
As you're saying that, Viren, you can feel from the pouch in your where you put the key that There's a slight pressure to it.
He's gonna try to lean his head away a moment. I need a moment to think. I'm going to be over here. He's gonna put himself away a little bit, reach into the coat, pull out this little key thing that they found when Kniepo just kind of vanished. Just kind of give it a look over.
As you're looking it over, uh, holding it like a little bracelet, you can see that the key is moving slightly, as though Uh, being tugged in a light breeze, going in the same direction.
This kind of takes note of it for a moment. Varan is in no rush to move currently. There is one entryway to this room, and he can keep an eye on it until he feels like he has blood in his legs again.
I'm gonna keep, uh, talking to this hedgehog, though. So, how'd you get here? Oh,
well, you know. Just, uh, exploring a bit more of the First World. It changes all the time. Got a little too close to here, saw a big log, but hey, that's pretty cool. I should check that out. Uh, lo and behold though, that's Occupy by, uh, Kimipo. I've been here for, uh, plus count. Time works a little differently here, but I think it's at least been a couple months, maybe years, maybe decades. Who's to say?
Oh, you want something to eat? I got some fruit.
Oh yeah, for sure.
Oh, here you go. Uh, do you think you can, like, lead us out of here? Getting in in here was confusing. We got split by going the same direction.
If that's the case, then getting out of here is going to be a problem. I'm just kind of chiming in from a distance, very clearly listening in. At least if everything still works the same way Kanipo left it when he missed it. If it is that way, then, well, I guess we'll be wandering for a while, unless we find some guide and just kind of Looks at the key for a moment. This was supposed to be tied back to the arches, wasn't it? That was what Bolin directed, why he gathered it in the first
place. I believe so, yeah. Gonna poke around, just sort of like anywhere else here. See if the bed or whatever. See if, see if, you know, Kanipo left us any nice loot beyond, uh, just the key.
Mia definitely goes like, sniffing around and occasionally just like, bumping her head on things.
Unfortunately, the only thing that you find in this room is the key, the Shade Wither Key.
That's
unfortunate.
Continuing talking to his Hedgehog after Varen makes his comment. It's like, well, can you get us out of here? Can you take us to anywhere? Everywhere? Nowhere? I mean,
I don't know. I, uh, I got in here. Obviously, I haven't gotten out in a long time. So, uh, I don't know. Odds are just as bad. Good that you guys can take me out of here, which is kind of what I was hoping for.
So you, you've just been in the cage.
Oh yeah. You
haven't been out? How are your legs feeling?
Oh, they're pretty stiff. But, uh, you know, I did a couple of laps around the cage. Like, uh, a hundred thousand or so. And it keeps me nice and limber. He, uh, does a couple of foot stretches. Putting his hands up and then touching his toes. Kind of rolling into a little spiky ball while he does it.
Well, you can stay on my shoulder then, when we're walking, if you feel like you can't walk.
Oh yeah, sure, and those flames on your head, they, uh, they real or decoration?
Uh, they're real, but they're, they go up, not out. Okay,
just make sure not to burn me, okay?
Okay. Put a lot
of work into these quills, making sure they're nice and sharp and shiny.
Alright.
Are
you guys ready to move out?
Uh, I believe so. I'm just taking a kind of step towards the way that they came in and just briefly under his breath. Yeah, flames are what we have to worry about, not choking each other out.
Say that out loud enough to, for everyone to hear?
I think you know what I said, Vin.
That was, okay. Oh, he's in a bad mood. Not really sure why right now.
So, one of you going through the open door? Or, through the doors to the throne room? If it's the only way
out. Yeah, Varon will just start walking that way. Seeming as the only real place we can go in here. Just kind of keeping an eye down on this thing that's hanging around his wrist now.
You open up the door and see the insides of a tree. Rather than the liminal halls that you all have been stuck in for a long time. It has enough space for people to walk around through, but it is There's Twisted, and gnarled, and uh, not terribly inviting. But you are able to see light, or at least what passes for light in the Shadowlands. A little distance off from it.
Mia just sniffs. Can't like, see anything. Not really, it's just darker. Heh. The normal. But she does give, like, a good sniff and tries to listen with all the senses. Okay, give me a perception check. Boop a doop a doop a doop a doop a doop.
16! A 16. That is enough so that you can remember the kind of musty smell of the outside of the Shadowlands.
Just like, it smells shadowy.
Which is to say, a very distinct smell from the rest of the world.
Well, nowhere to go but forward, I suppose, and continue as we are. Just kind of look down at this thing to see if it's still moving in some direction.
It is. As you flamber through the rest of the Gnarled Tree, and finally get out into the Shadowlands, the colors are muted again. A true All of that black and white and grey, the key that you're holding starts to glow green. You can see that it is tugging in a very insistent way, defying gravity, and at just a, a slight angle as you hold it from the, uh, from the necklace part. Are you doing that, Varan?
I'm just holding it. This is doing it itself.
What's doing what?
Like, look before he moves to make sure Freya is not, like, in the direction he's turning. Whatever this thing is supposed to do, it seems to have some either latent magic, a mind of its own, direction, I'm not certain. It keeps moving in the same way. Like a pendulum, as if it's just shifting one direction. Do
they make any kind of arcana check to maybe understand this item? Sure, certainly. Nope, that's an 11. I probably don't.
I mean it's, this is magic. Exactly what's going on though, you're not sure.
Hmm, yes, it's magic.
It's hard for Freya because Baron is very much just insisted that you not get within like, 5 feet of this thing. You're just kind of looking at, you know, something that's the size of his palm, just like, at 5 foot distance.
Do you have it like, hanging low?
He's got it like, very tightly, like, able to control it in his grasp, just enough where it's like, hanging down.
That's good, cause Mia totally would've liked it.
I mean, whichever direction that is, I'm sure that's better than where we are right now.
You
certain about that? Wow, that is Not too many scenic places here in the Shadowlands.
Hey, hey friend, uh, I was just wondering, how did you, why did, why did Knievel put you in a cage? Why were you in a cage?
Because he's a mad freak.
Okay, well, besides that,
Mr. Grumpy Boy. I don't know, maybe he just needed someone to talk to. I mean, he certainly wouldn't shut up about you.
I don't need to hear that. Hey, thanks.
I mean, is that his only obsession? You have others?
Creating his own race, just like him.
Yeah, never had a family, or uh, even like a species. Which, like, you know, lots of fae are very different, but you can usually categorize yourself in certain circles. Complained a lot about that. Wanted to uh, you know, end the entire race of elves. And then uh, once you came around, Mia, he uh, kinda sensed ya. And figured what he could do with
ya. She just like, sits and makes the frumpiest face. Like, I don't understand what that means.
He had some process, I'm not entirely sure what. It all seemed to be using your blindness to blind the world, casting it into eternal darkness, making it into his domain. Thus making him capable of spreading the Nubliate Curse and destroying whatever race he so choose.
Except my blindness allows me to bring light. I don't know, I think this guy's just a little crazy.
Well, he's a little bit non existent anymore, so Doesn't matter.
And crazy's just touching the surface of what Kniepo is. Or was, I suppose.
Just kind of glance over at him as he says that, and just glare briefly.
Mia has
just
got a feeling that Kniepo's not She doesn't believe it.
Well Follow the key for now. It's our only lead.
It's that or try and wander through the halls again, and I'm not exactly in the mood for wandering.
I can tell. I promise I won't touch it.
I'll take the lead. I'm the least currently beaten. Uh, well, I'll
take the lead then. You should chill, just I have the key. Then how will you know where to go? I'll take the key. It'll lead us the same direction.
No, you will not. Why?
Why?
The strange artifact remains in the hands of the ones that actually care about our mission here.
I care about leaving.
Great, then you can follow me.
Let's just get out of here, okay? Mia just starts walking. You're being,
you're being irrational, Varan, which is funny, in my opinion. She's
just Mia's just walking. Fuck this, I'm out.
I will follow Mia.
She has no idea where she's walking. He is basically blind right now. He just
starts, all the way, and just starts heading off.
I wasn't the one near death. You have a ranged weapon, let me go first. The key. Why? You're being irrational. You want to work as a team, then work as a damn team.
He just starts walking off, just following the direction of the key.
Yeah, in the background, it's just like, it's like I never left Atari. I'm back in the fishery, with my two sisters. Peace.
Baron, get your head out of your ass, and do the smart thing.
I am, called not giving the person with something he doesn't want to admit being inside of him an artifact of this power.
You are a man with no memories with an artifact of power. We all have bad situation.
Great, and let's make it slightly better by leaving.
Walks into another wall.
She's hurt enough, we don't need a broken nose too. Come on Mia, let's, let's,
let's travel in my pack for now.
All three of you guys were nearly dead. I, I, respectfully, I'm the fittest at the moment. You can call me uninjured.
Look, uh, there seems to be some interpersonal drama, which, if y'all were to talk it out, Might lead to some kind of interesting character arc, or whatever. But, I think we just gotta get the hell out of here. And, if that guy is able to hold a key and walk at the same time, I don't see a problem with it. You just, why don't you keep an eye out for, uh, you know, those scary dogs, or the birds with the black eyes.
Fine. Fine. We'll let the stubborn guy, who has no memories of who he is, go first. Makes zero strategic sense.
Oh, so now we're talking strategy. Fantastic.
Have
we
not been talking strategy since we've been here?
We did have a strategy going into that fight. It did
not survive.
What?
Baron, did you get hit on the head too hard? Like, for the most part, we've been trying to work together since we entered this damn place.
I'm assuming we're walking and talking.
I
assume so, too.
Okay.
Yeah, Varan would not have stopped. Like, he would have just started walking and following where this key was leading.
Yeah, as you are walking, it is taking you deeper and deeper into some woods. The trees look like autumn, where none of them have leaves. And they're all kind of just this mix of Different shades of gray. 50 of them. You could say No. No. Okay, I'll move
No, leave it in. Chris, I need you to put the, the rim shot, but um, in there,
maybe it's the title of the episode, right.
Anyway, as you continue walking, the key starts to glow brighter and brighter, and starts to emit a hump. It's finally that you seem to reach something that is different than the forest around. Another set of seven arches. I'm
gonna look them over a moment. Freya, these are elven, aren't they?
They look like the elven arches.
They look indistinguishable from the ones in Galarian, except for maybe having less wear and tear, moss. Things growing on it, et cetera. They look very clean.
This is strange.
It's like the ones back in Valerian, but cleaner.
They're precise duplicates. Exact same positioning and angles. Like, as far as I can tell. Didn't, don't have drawings or anything on me, but yeah, I mean. The first world's a duplication of Galarian beyond mortal interference.
Well, no, you are a duplication of our world, I'll have you
be reminded. More of the other way, yeah.
It's a nudity day.
These were constructed by elves. Elves are not fey. How can they be here?
I don't know, I was there for it.
This is a chicken and egg situation. We have a cat attack. Very interested in joining the game.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I've lost the last 15 seconds of plot, I apologize.
Come on, come on boy. Mia just starts
like, fussing around in the pack like,
Let
me out, let me out, let me out, let me out, let me out.
Can the key open one of these things to leave? I mean, it's worth a shot. It
should
be open
to them somehow, yes. I suppose, I'm just not certain which one. Just kind of go to the middle of them and see which one it directs us to.
You can see that the key is swaying towards the furthest one to the right. The seventh.
Hmm. Oh. We traveled here from the arches. The seven arches. It would have been easier to figure this out if we were going home or not.
We also have to think of Freya, even if we open a portal.
Yeah, can you
go through that?
Well, simple enough. You It's tied to the key, I believe, is from what Bolin was saying, not the arch itself. Isn't
the whole thing is you can't touch the arch as well?
Well, we did that, though. She touched the one in it. I touched the fake one. She touched the
fake one, not the real one. I'll just be very careful when I walk through it.
Don't touch the gate. The portal itself is a construct of magic and dimensional energy, so it should be simple enough to make our way through, I suppose.
Mia touches something. She just goes on something. No idea what it is.
Okay, Mia, don't touch Freya now. Maybe carry a status.
Mia, unfortunately, we're going to have to quarantine you for 14 days.
She can't say the word.
Is there a keyhole or anything that could be a keyhole on any of the gates for that matter? Particularly in the one that we're looking at.
Yeah, it doesn't appear so.
Check around, see if there's any markings on any of these that are similar to these kind of gestures to his neck. If not, I suppose we could just try touching the key to the gateway. Not a bad idea. I'd just rather make sure that we're not going through the wrong portal.
You know how some gear you have to invest in? Is the key one of them?
You're not sure. You don't know enough about this game.
Will you let me inspect the key? I know a little bit about the occult.
We can work on it together. Consider it team building.
Can't tell. Turned to the hedgehog. Can't tell if he's mocking me or he's being Serious, but I'm going to take the chance that he's being serious.
Oh no, he's mocking you. That guy hates your friggin guts. Can you really handle that?
You know, I try to, to put a lending hand, I try to help out, and it just gets shot away. What's a monkey gonna do?
Mia tries to lick the key. She's, like, standing on her hind legs, like, Eh, eh, eh, eh.
Just kind of move it away.
I'm keeping five feet back.
Doesn't even have to move it that far, still partially blind. Just kind of, no.
She just sees, like, vague, shadowy outlines. Like, nothing is clear. She knows not what anything is.
It's better we just try this. I mean, let's take a brief look at this for a moment. See what we can figure out. If it ends up being nothing, touch the key to the gate and hope for the best. Learn by doing.
Okay, so you're touching the key to the gate?
Letting, um, I'm gonna try to aid Vin in an occultism check to look this thing over quick.
I, I rolled blindly, or whatever the word is, so. Yeah,
uh. I'll try to aid this. It's a plus four, so I need a sixteen or higher to actually help. Ooh. That's a fail.
Fail, but not a critical fail.
Yep. I don't help, but I don't hurt.
Progress. You're looking at the key, or at least as much as Baron will let you hold. You don't think you have to invest in this key. This isn't that kind of, of item. It seems to have a very dedicated purpose, and at this point, As close as you all are to that arch is no longer even swaying, it is essentially almost pulling towards the seventh arch.
There's almost like an attraction field here. If you let go, it's probably going to do its own thing. Not saying you should let go, but understand that. That could be a risk. I
don't want to leave this behind if it happens to attach to the gate. I'd rather have it in hand and pull it through with us.
I don't know if we have a choice, to be honest.
Best we can do is try.
All right, well, touch the keys to the gate. See if you can keep a hold of it.
I'm just gonna walk up to it, set it onto the side, like, in the palm of his hand, grab the side of the gate, press it to between. Okay,
as soon as you touch the key to the gate, a shimmering jade green veil forms in the opening of it. You can't see, though, what's on the other side. It just simply glows. Oh, there we go, that's progress.
I have to give it to Kniepo, at least you can see through his.
I don't think we should praise him, like, at all. Hey, thanks, bud.
No, he was awful, but gallows humor.
She just like, whispers over to Freya, like, it's a
g I'll tell you when you're older.
Well, wherever that goes, it's gotta be better than here.
Why
don't So, uh, have you taken the first step?
Varian, if you're holding the key, I'll go first, and I'll come back when I see what I see. Assuming I can.
If you're able to, if not, we'll, I think it's possibly best we all go together as one. How, how wide's this gate? Like, is it doorway size, or like, we can go in all at once?
Yeah, you, you all can go, and it's Fairly big, allowing an entire group of people to go through.
Can we practice our heroic stances first? You know, like, strike a pose.
I think we need to practice our dressing of wounds and finding a shelter.
Working on it. We can only do so much trapped in this stupid shadow realm, whatever the case
is. Well, that's why we're trying to leave. We don't know what's on the other side. All together at once. That way no one gets picked off and carried away if there's some weird time component to this portal. At least I'd hope so.
Okay. Or we do and we all die and, you know, in that case, it was nice knowing everyone. It's been really great.
I mean, honestly, getting ripped apart by dimensional energy as we travel through some unknown place sounds a lot more pleasant of a way to die than having your shadow ripped apart. Piece by piece, tortured by an insane madman.
I really appreciate y'all not letting me. Mia just, like, prepares to step through the gate with everybody else.
I feel like I'm not prepared to die, so I I will remain the face of optimism for the second part of that moment, and say, we're gonna get through this, okay? No shadows riffing, no scary thing on the other side. I'm sure it'll be fine. All right, I'll go. You guys follow right behind me.
Yeah!
Okay.
Make sure he's, like, the, just the, the, like, quarter of a second delay last person to make sure that everyone's through the gate before he takes the key off as he goes through.
You know, in hindsight, we should have sent the hedgehog first.
Drop him off Vin's shoulder and pump.
The thing that you see as Vin approaches is that as soon as his body touches the veil, he doesn't go through. Rather, he, it looks like he just vanishes. It's. His body glows a sudden green, and then is just gone. Well,
he's either dead or at the destination. Let's go.
And he goes through. Cubit says, you don't have to tell me twice! And kind of cannonballs into it.
We'll follow.
Yup.
At least he's eager to step through.
As you appear on the other side, humid air slaps you like a hot towel. All around is a verdant jungle. Nothing like either the shadowy thin lands or the temperate wildwood. The trees are huge sprawling affairs and the air shivers with chittering insects and hooting beasts. Looking back, you see the portal blink out, leaving only a stone archway in its place. Yet instead of the now familiar seven arches, the one behind you stands alone on a plinth. Its shape is different.
Its stone is cracked and worn The arches feet. Lies the ruins of some buildings long since collapsed. Large grey blocks and obelisks carved with strange symbols and wrapped in strangling vine. So, uh, is this where y'all came from?
Absolutely not. Am I
poofy? Mia just like, tries to chase her sail, but can't. She's just her poof ball now.
Unwrap the scarf. Wipe the sweat off my face.
Varan just takes two fingers and kind of runs them along his head. Finds a couple of beads of sweat and just kind of looks at them oddly a moment before wiping them on his coat and Just sort of not bothering to take off the extremely warm looking cold weather clothing that he's wearing You're
trying
to dehydrate man Look, that's a barren problem. I don't know what it is.
I still feel cold. I'm sweating, but I feel cold Maybe i'm getting a flu or something. I'm not sure
Were you able to hold on to the key?
I've just got to look at my hand and see if it's there.
It is. Though, it has stopped glowing and is now swaying freely.
Well, whatever it is, I don't think we're going to be able to do that again. Not that I want to go back there.
Oh, I certainly don't want to go back. Mm mm. Zero out of ten.
Like, they do have the gogo marketplace. Triple bag that thing and keep it safe.
You just kind of, you see him adjust in his pocket a moment and just kind of suck it into his coat. Shift his hand, it goes a bit deeper. Shift his hand again, it goes further down to where he's past the elbow deep into his jacket. Just kind of shifts it out. Alright, that shouldn't be going anywhere now.
I'm starting to think maybe the, the bird is not the most magical thing about you. It might be the coat.
With just deep pockets. I had them layered so that they can separate objects when they're missing.
Did you? Did you have this coat before or after the missing moment?
This one I had taken out after I got it. This was an after thing. Okay. I had a lot to carry. Did you? Backpacks are troublesome. Have
a backpack? Okay.
Do you want to have a bag the size of your chest hanging off your back while you're trying to fight? It's not comfortable.
Meanwhile, Vin has his camping backpack, right? With his camping gear around his back.
Oh, you just, just kind of reaches in and shifts a hand around. You see a bump in the coat just kind of shift and he pulls out the full bedroll. Like it, it works perfectly fine.
Shoves it back in. Some sort of coat of holding.
Nothing magic about it, just a fantastic tailor. I
should really see if I can get pockets of holding. Do
you have many pockets at all? You've explained this jacket to me and I still have more questions.
I have
pockets. Like, do you have any snack pouches? Where do you keep your water skin?
Just kind of shifts and opens it up. Rations are in that one. Water skin's attached through there. And just kind of pulls out a little straw that's near the top and just kind of Back in.
Now that is clever design.
Is this where you're from? Me? Yeah, Hubert's, that what it was. Hubert, are you from here? No.
He said he was a fave, that means he's back from where we were, just not necessarily that area.
Let's see if we can get a vantage point somewhere. Maybe someone will recognize something.
See if we can't figure out at least something, uh, just kinda looks around. Not exactly a survivalist sort, but I suppose I could look into the plant life and whatnot that's around here, see if we can I know a few things of a field survival guide and might at least lead us something.
Okay, you can give me a nature roll. Varen, you have been around the Inner Sea region enough to have collected a pretty good knowledge of common and even some uncommon. Nothing. That you see here. And I mean, no plants seem to be something that you have seen anywhere in the Inner Sea. As you continue to look around, you start to also see some fauna. They are odd looking. There is lemurs with mosquito nosed purple faces.
You see birds, which aren't feathered, but rather scaly, with insect like eyes. You see birds, which aren't feathered, but rather scaly, with insect like eyes. The trees are big, and their leaves are even bigger. Bigger than any leaves that you think you have ever seen. The thing that you do notice about it is that the leaves are the same shape as the key that you have. I
think we have a slight issue, too, particularly.
We have several slight issues, but sure, yeah, let's add it to the pile.
Well, slighted that there's nothing we can do about them.
Yet again, continue adding to the pile of things we can't do anything about.
One, whoever made this key is from where we are now. Just kind of gesture at the shapes on it and up at the trees. These are the same. This key doesn't originate from our area of Seven Arches. It's from here. Secondly, I have read quite Mwangi expanses and various jungles over in Tianxia. I've spoken with members from Catapesh and finding the odd outs there. None of this is anything I have seen or read about, at all. We're either in some unknown portion of Valyrian.
There's a distinct possibility that this might not even be the material plane. It could be some alternate jump from the First World to something else. Or somewhere else entirely. I'm not certain. All I know is, I don't think we're remotely even close to getting home. I can't say where we are, but something isn't right about this place. The heat alone doesn't feel natural. It feels different, heavier. Yeah. Just kind of picks up his feet and steps a bit. Even walking feels a bit different.
Yeah, well at least we can breathe.
That's true, as heavy as the air is. Yeah,
Freya's like, during this whole thing has been like, stripping off some of the heavier layers of her clothes. Sort of, uh, you know, getting down to some, you know, basic stuff.
So, you're saying that the heat feels heavier? Was that, was that your word choice, Farron?
Yes, it, I've been a few places that it feels oppressive. I've been towards Absalom, towards the, the center of the world. It's, it's warm. I've been towards Catapesh. A literal desert. This is wet.
How is, uh, monkey hair, fire hair, handling it?
It is very humid here. But the air is very rich as well. There is something about simply breathing right now That. Makes you feel a little stronger, meaning to say that you all have a plus one circumstance bonus to fortitude saves. Oh,
interesting.
Gonna
die. Let's, let's see if we can get a view. Uh, I'm gonna climb a tree or something. Or, look for a path or something. And, uh, see if we can get an idea of where we're at.
You climb up a tree. I'm not even gonna make you roll for it, cause you're a monkey, you know how to do these things. You're a monkey. Yeah. You get high enough, and from your vantage point, you see a rolling green sea stretching westward. Two points of interest immediately catch your eye. One is a jagged mountain range thrusting towards the sky like teeth, gray walls steep and foreboding, many miles away. The outlines of pyramidal structures can be seen on one of the range's lower slopes.
Second, a pair of brilliant purple robes. Connect the nearby hill to the pyramid in the distant mountains. Like lines drawn in the air to guide your eye, tiny dots, vessels of some sort, travel back and forth along these blazing magical lines, forming a steady circuit hundreds of feet above the jungle canopy below.
Yelling down, uh, guys, I see something, um, there are some structures, there West of us, and there's weird rope things like above the tree line.
Like rope bridges?
I don't, I don't know. There's like, it's like rope that connects to, they're like pier, pier, I, it's, it's hard, I don't, I don't really know what it is.
Like a cart being lifted on a rope?
I, I don't see a cart.
Like a structure, like a home of some kind? Like,
some
A big box?
Maybe? They're very small, I don't have that good It's like
You said they're to the west.
Yeah.
How far?
How, uh, I don't know. Uh, can I squint?
Uh, sure.
Please roll to squint. How much more detail can I get if I try to get more about these dots? Put
your hands up and binocular your eyes.
I don't see much. I see about a 2 plus 4 for a
6
worth.
You can tell that, at the very least, the city is very far, and the hill where the light beams touch is much closer.
Um, no matter where we go, it's, it's gonna be a little bit of a walk. Um, These, these, this purple rope thing is pretty close, but the structures are pretty far. I don't really have a Good depth perception enough to really get a distance feel.
We want to head to the purple rope thing first. Are they in different directions, or are they both in the same direction?
They're both relatively in the same direction. I mean, if you walked past the area where the ropes end, uh, you would keep going until eventually you hit the city. But it's not too far off, severe, to get to the hill where the ropes end.
And I'll jump down at this point. We also could consider getting some rest. Might not be the worst idea.
Might not be, uh, we should find, shouldn't do it out in the open, a cave or something that we can seek shelter in.
Well this is a new place, I don't know if it plays by any of the same rules that we're familiar with. That's fair.
Well, our safe bet is civilization, but I suppose we could start heading that way and then see if we can find somewhere to rest on the way.
I'm just worried it's going to take us days to get there. I don't know how dense this jungle is, I don't know how fast we can go.
Yeah, there is some worry in that.
There are hills, we'll have slopes, and I don't know what we'll see. We'll
rest when we can, but I don't think we should exactly stick around here, it's a fairly open
space. We should make, um, make a move forward in the direction and keep an eye out for, uh, on our way for a place to bunker down in the next few hours. Okay,
let's, let's do that. If you guys are up for it. You good, Mia?
Oh yeah. Mia's just like, catcher with her tongue out, about to lick something, like, ehh.
New place, Mia, I wouldn't recommend that.
Well, how am I supposed to learn about it? I can't see it.
Ask us to look at it. Studying it.
She's kind of like, tails down, ears down, just walks so sad, like.
Mia's not gonna have an epic death. Mia's gonna touch something poisonous and
And she's gonna poison us and die.
What's this apple? Licks a poisoned tree frog. RIP Mia. Weird bright fruit. This
weird shadow fruit. You can now, like, see her cataracts, like, the, just the milky white haze that's over her eyes.
Now perhaps we'll get that taken care of a little bit when we actually manage to sit down for some time. I
mean, if we gotta, if there's a town, I, I, I've been traveling and trying to find someone to fix my eyes. Is there someone there that could do that?
Before we get going, you're just gonna set a hand down to a side and pull up two little glass vials. I've only got these two left. If anyone goes back down. I don't know if any of you have any left, but resources may be a bit thin.
You should probably give Yeah, I don't I
don't have any left. I spent my last two during these fights. Gonna hold one out to Freya. Better they be across two people than one.
That's fair.
I got drugs.
I also have drugs, I still have flaily.
I have an ant, too. That's just a minor healing.
Our group Heads off, traveling through unknown territory in a strange land. Where have they ended up and where are they going to? We'll find out next time on Ashen Snow.