DM: Omelette

Dates: 07 July to 05 August 2023.

Levels: 5 – 9

Risk: 7

Party:

• Yusung. Level 7 Kor Druid (Calmseeker)
• Galli. Level 7 Gnome Wizard (tiffthatsit)
• Beralt. Level 6 Bugbear Blood Hunter (Espada)
• Vivi. Level 8 Sikahla Sorcerer (Konopa)
• Slissezh. Level 6 Yuan-ti Warlock Sorcerer (TheOddity)
• Alessio. Level 9 Human Cleric (War) 1, Fighter (Battle Master) 5, Ranger (Gloom Stalker) 3 (naiiz)

Summary:

After rescuing Beralt from the Master’s forces, the party travelled with Clair to find gnome Cleric and ask about Blue, the Master’s lover, and her daughter Destra. Fought evil spirits in the Small Folk Forest. Met Fizzle that could transform into a lizard. Celebrated marriage of newlywed halflings Darcy and Gillian. Fought Master’s servants Ilestra and Alchemist at Destra’s palace. Met with Cleric and his companion Stream.

Asked about how to save Destra who had her body taken over by the Master and how to give Blue a new body. Cleric said only Destra could give Blue a new body. Cleric then took us back in time to talk to past Blue to stand up against the Master for her daughter Destra’s sake. Also talked to past Ilestra. Returned to present and found that Ilestra was alive with new memories and relationship to us. She was no longer the servant of the Master. Cleric did not return to confirm whether Destra’s body was still taken over by Master, so we went back to town.

Location of where Destra’s palace is.

Day 1:

Upon hearing that there was a house shaped like a mushroom south of Port Mirandia, we went there and met Clair the young halfling lady. The mysterious gnome known as Cleric was not with her.

Cleric’s mushroom house. Larger inside than it appears on the outside.

“Cleric and Stream are with the Librarian. She waved her hand and here I am.”

-Clair

Clair told us that Cleric stayed in Destra’s library along with someone named Stream, while Clair was transported with the mushroom house away.

“We were in that field when you went to fight the ones that had caught you. Cleric got hurt and I tried to get us to safety.

We ended up trapped where you saw us in Destra’s place before being thrown into that cave you found us in when your friends were petrified.

We then collected Stream and went to the librarian before I ended up here.”

Clair. Cleric’s companion.

She was unable to operate the magical functions of the mushroom house by herself. She asked us to follow her to Destra’s location to find Cleric. Vivi was confused by this logic, but Clair explained that she wanted to find the Librarian and resolve grudges she had with the Librarian for sending her away. Clair also saw a pale, skinny figure with a deer skull with antlers on their head. 

Eager for answers, we went to the Small Folk Forest to find Cleric and hopefully Destra, whose body was taken over by the Master, from what I have read.

Before that could happen though, we had to stop by town to get a necklace from Rilan found previously from Blue, a woman who could turn into a wolf and was a lover of the Master. They had a daughter together that was Destra. Vivi wore the necklace along with another one. 

Made camp.

Day 2:

When we awoke, we discovered that Vivi was unresponsive. While a few people thought it was a sikhala thing, we soon found out that Vivi was frozen over with a layer of ice due to the two necklaces worn. I tried to dispel it using Dispel Magic or a Create Bonfire, but neither worked. Clair said that Cleric would know what to do, but the ice disappeared after a few hours by itself, so that was a rather large waste of resources. It seems that the two necklaces caused the ice to occur. 

I composed a poem in Draconic musing how a sikhala, a being of shadows, could become frozen.

“To freeze that which is effervescent, to grasp at the ephemeral through the frigid hands of ice, to strive to attain that which cannot be felt… Perhaps a reflection of our own efforts to reach the stars.”

-Yusung

Despite the rather unfortunate occurrence of getting frozen by Blue’s necklace that held Blue’s soul, Vivi seemed determined to save Blue. 

“I won’t give up on her. Blue said that we are going to meet with the Master’s greatest enemy. I’m not sure if that’s Clair, cleric, Denny, or the other one. I hope we are able to make the best of it though.”

-Vivi

Continuing to travel, we found an area of the forest that was silent. 

“It’s quiet. Too quiet.”

-Alessio

After a tense silence, malevolent spirits emerged from the forest and attacked us. Their blows dealt necrotic damage to us and drained our vitality. There were about a dozen of them, but we managed to fight them off eventually.

Evil Spirit. Drained vitality.

Once we fought off those spirits, we heard a sigh and saw a lizard wearing clothes sitting in a tree. The lizard said we had gotten in the way of purifying those spirits, and the lizard transformed into a lady with a wide brimmed hat and a hummingbird flying around her. Her name was Fizzle. 

Fizzle in lizard form

Fizzle in humanoid form

She was on vacation from her family. She handed us an animated, moving onion with facial features to eat. That was perturbing enough for me to decline, while Vivi ate one… somehow. Fizzle said that there were eighty more bloody spirits left in the area, so we hastily left. She was a rather bizarre individual, but no more bizarre than others on the island. Galli gave her a mechanical bird. I’ve noticed she has a habit of giving out gifts to people, even strangers. A magnanimous habit. 

Animated onion that Vivi had without hesitation

After we escaped that haunted place, we came across a small village that was celebrating a wedding. It turned that the party knew the bride: a halfling lady named Darcy. We decided to stay the night at the local inn to rest and celebrate while we were at it. Clair got inebriated. Slissezh seemed confused about what a wedding was but was trying to hide it. Beralt and Galli danced together and drank. I did not drink as much as they did. 

The groom Gillian was a halfling guy that rode a wolf into the party dramatically. We introduced ourselves to him and congratulated them on their wedding. I gave them my Bottled Fingers as a wedding gift since secretly, I did not really end up finding a use for it. I hope they do. They apparently knew about Destra as well and mentioned seeing mutants about 2-3 weeks ago that were possibly related to the ones attacking Destra’s tree, which is where she seems to live.

Gillian the halfling groom. New husband to Darcy.

After paying 2 silver pieces each at the inn, we stayed the night there after some more drinking.

Day 3:

We reconvened, with Clair having a hangover. I wisely did not. We said goodbye to the newlywed couple before we walked over to Destra’s tree, which was closer than I expected. The tree hid an entrance to her palace. People were cautious due to recent events involving the Master possessing the body of Destra, who was an unfortunate victim in this incident.

“Typically we walk up to the entrance and Destra has a guard posted, but since she has become possessed by the Master I think we approach stealthily and see if we can’t get in.”

-Beralt

“Ok, I’m ready, I think. Beralt, please, don’t leave me like you did last time. If a chase ensues, make sure I’m with you! As for everyone else, keep your heads on a swivel.”

-Galli

We entered through a door in the tree with a faint sheen to it. We were greeted with the sight of a burned carriage, which had not been burned previously apparently. We decided to not take the magical carriage and walked towards a column of smoke. Destruction pervaded the area as we made it to Destra’s courtyard of Destra’s hidden palace. At the middle of the courtyard, there were two figures shouting up at the rampart walls of the palace at Cleric. The figures were identified as Ilestra, a red haired lady, and the Alchemist, a monstrous being with the front half of a monstrosity and the back half of a glasses-wearing humanoid. I recall fighting them before, but the others explained that those had been clones. These figures identified themselves as the originals after we managed to ambush them. A gruelling combat ensued. Ilestra was particularly tiresome as she had alchemical vials that could obscure vision, heal her and paralyse us. She also had grafted internal organs that could nullify radiant and lightning damage? That was truly unusual. The alchemist also hit hard, but we managed to prevail, destroying him. Alessio offered Ilestra to surrender, and at first, it looked like she was considering it, but the others said that she could not be trusted. Before we could attack though, she declared that the alchemist was her brother, took out a dagger and took her own life. 

Ilestra. Used a lot of vials. Immune to various damages.

Alchemist. Strong claws.

“You’ve killed him (the alchemist) before. Your negligence killed everyone I held close to me. I won’t give you the satisfaction.”

-Ilestra’s final words before stabbing her own chest. Brutal.

While this was happening, we encountered a new woman who turned out to be Stream, one of Cleric’s companions.

Stream. Cleric’s companion.

We finally encountered Cleric directly, and he melted the remaining ice on Vivi. Asked how to help Blue. Cleric said only Destra can help her mother Blue.

Cleric. Enigmatic gnome of time.

He then said the following:

“Do you know what happened when they-” he points to Slissezh and Galli, “unlocked the memories buried deep within this place? Of course not, you weren’t there. They also broke three of the owls that tethered this place to the Master’s realm.

You see, the Master had a plan, he set traps. He ensured that should this place break free of his realm that it would be destroyed. Torn to shreds by a vortex.

Now, they unlocked the memories, broke the owls and freed this place  from being linked to the Masters domain. Now that is where the interesting things happened.

The back wall tore off as a vortex formed, rendering all it consumed to cosmic dust.” He runs up to Vivi.

“Though Destra, in the back of her wonderful mind had an inkling, a natural reaction to hold out her hand to the vortex and draw it in, strip its power and consume it.” He backs away again walking to a chalkboard that you could have sworn wasn’t there before.

He draws a bottle with liquid being poured into it “Destra, power she consumed from the vortex” he says tapping the bottle then the liquid.

“She managed to consume it all, though she knew she couldn’t hold it, for she wasn’t strong enough. She would explode if she attempted to hold that power within.

You know what she did? She took the five pendants that her guards had been trapped in. Similar to Blue’s situation. And she used that power to free them and create new bodies, free from the Master’s control.

She almost killed herself doing so. The surge of pure power was a lot for her. Most days after that were spent resting and recovering.

She wanted to grow stronger, so she found a way to unlock this place and restore it to what it was. She began to learn how to wield her powers.

Then she met a tiny shadow that encouraged her to do her best, and that she did. She dedicated every waking moment to grow stronger.

If not for her growth in strength, the Master would have been in full control on day one.”

-Cleric’s monologue

After this, the mushroom house was travelling through time by the rapid movement of the days through the window. 

Cleric then told us we had travelled to the past, and we were tasked with talking to Blue and convincing her to rebel against her father the Master. Cleric asked whether we wanted to do this, and I decided for the sake of making the log, I would go. The others followed suit. 

Cleric specified that we would only be able to influence certain things in the past due to the nature of the chronomancy magic. He also warned us of telling people in the past about what would happen in the future as it could create… problems. At this point, I was very lost in following the conversation due to my low intelligence, but I tried writing down what I could.

Cleric said he would fight the Master in the past. Stream and Clair offered to follow, but Cleric was firm that he had to do this himself. After Cleric told us what door to go to, we wished him luck and went to meet Blue. In the past. Somehow.

Blue was in Destra’s nursery in her humanoid form.

Blue in the past. Daughter of the Master. Could transform into a wolf.

After we explained that we were here to warn her, Vivi managed to persuade her to rebel against the Master for the sake of Blue’s daughter Destra. Destra was still a baby in the nursery at the time. Blue then performed sigils of ice that sealed Destra’s magic until “the time was right.”

We then saw people running to a library for shelter from the Master. There was a young girl that was Ilestra in the past. She asked if we were heroes. Vivi then surprised me a little with the following words:

“I wanted to be a hero.  A hero is strong and saves everyone.  I can’t save anyone, no matter how hard I try.  I will never stop trying, but I have yet to succeed.  I am truly sorry.”

-Vivi’s confession

Vivi began to insinuate things that would happen in the future for Blue and Ilestra, which Cleric had warned us against. I whispered to Vivi in Draconic:

“I can understand the desire to aid those that were controlled, but the timeline could get distorted if we do not follow Cleric. He seems to know what he is saying. However, if you want to give her words of encouragement, that should be fine.”

-Yusung’s words to Vivi

As explosions made the ground rumble, we returned to the mushroom house, where Clair and Stream helped us inside. Inside, there was a large hour glass atop the table. Once the sands inside ran out, the outside of the house blurred until we returned to our own time apparently. Cleric had not returned yet. 

Clair and Stream said goodbye. They said they would go where Cleric instructed them next. It seemed Cleric’s motivations and plans were intricate and did not always make clear sense, but they seemed to trust him enough. The mushroom house disappeared with them inside.

We were back at Destra’s palace. We then ran into a woman that said she was Ilestra. The Ilestra we had seen die before we went to the past. Slissezh and Vivi explained to me later that due to our actions in the past, we had changed this timeline by Ilestra becoming someone new, not working for the Master and not dying. It seems she was familiar with us.

I hope you, reader, are keeping up with things as I am barely doing so at this point. 

New (?) Ilestra. Due to timeline changing

She told us that we had recently killed her brother the Alchemist and her insane mother Lestra. She seemed to have come to terms with our choices. 

While we looked around to see what else had changed, I saw that the kitchen had utensils that cooked with themselves magically. That’s not really relevant to the timeline thing. I just found it cool.

Ilestra explained what had happened since we had talked to her in the past:

“Unfortunately I can’t speak for that version of me. What I can say is that that day changed a lot of things for many people.

As Blue instructed, my mother took us to the lady of the library before she ran off to try and save other people. My brother decided to try and find her some time later.

I didn’t see them again until the day Destra got taken. From what I can surmise is that she found my brother and thought I was killed as well. She must have gone to the Master for that magic used to make him that way can only come from one person.

Unfortunately I don’t know if it was guilt or pain that drove her to do these heinous acts.

What I do know is that I was found and placed with Destra. We grew up together. She’s like my own sister.” She lifts up the false hand.

-Ilestra’s monologue

She said Cleric had not returned yet, but he was a capricious spirit, so it was hard to say when he would come back from fighting the Master. We decided to wait for one night at the palace.

Day 4:

As Cleric had not returned still, we decided to head back to town. Said goodbye to Ilestra. On the way, Vivi and Galli talked a lot of complicated things about the timeline and whether it was possible to interact with the past when your past selves were there. It seems our past travel was possible since a past version of ourselves were not there? That’s the most I took out of that.

It was unclear if Destra’s body is still taken over by the Master in this new timeline. With these questions buzzing around the party, we pushed through the night to get back to Port Mirandia. I was exhausted both physically and mentally when we returned finally, and I promptly went to sleep. Hopefully, things make more sense later.