DM: KCutajar
Shipmates: Grey, Dan, Gronk, Peppington, Orson, Gentleman
Important Note: We found more boats…and a new realm….plane….place.
I joined together with some others around the tavern to stretch my legs, get out of the guildhall for a while, and remind myself of the adrenaline of being on a mission and the potential death that comes with it. Some nice woman need help with a delinquent renter, but hadn’t the courage to investigate the rented cellar due to the animalistic growling coming from within. So, bored and foolhardy brave and noble citizens that we are, the lot of us decided to help, especially because her property was within the city limits.
We found nothing notable in the cellar, but for a sleeping dog, which soon woke and barked at us most unnaturally and seemed to not understand Gronk’s beastspeech. It soon revealed itself to be some manner of abomination rather than an ordinary dog, as it trapped us in some dark shadow field. I do not know if we were transported into some…pocket realm? Te’sil has said something about mini-planes or realms before, like Bags of Holding and the Mansion. But in any case, the beast, we soon learned it was known as ‘Shambler’, attacked and also created some sort of spawn along with it, picture below.
We were able to defeat the creature, though after its death a new dog, or puppy, emerged from within. We were able to communicate with it, and it appeared to be the same creature as before, retaining its memory. So, it seems Shambler has some degree of immortality. We learned that it had been summoned here by the delinquent renter, who studied it but could not discover how to send Shambler back where it, or he?, came from. The renter – this rogue dimensional researcher – had gone of to some rift between worlds that the Shambler can naturally detect, as they seem to link its home realm to ours in places.
Afterwards, Oreopan, Peppington’s water elemental, accidentally set off a fireball trap and burned much of his research notes we collected what lab materials we could and when in search of the closest rift the creature described to find our missing researcher, whose initials appear to be “VF“. 12 miles West of Ruined Oak, on the other shore of the Lake of Songs, we found a semi-submerged cave along the rocky shore.
We entered and in the far reaches of the cave, in a large sandy, circular space, found half the man, VF’s body along with an unnatural reddish rocky pillar with glowing light. The body appeared to have been sheared in half with great force. Looked similar to giant shark bites to me, or at least the leftovers of sailors killed by them but fended off before they could enjoy the second half.. Touching the pillar, while physically difficult from some force pushing us back, transported us to another…realm. The man’s pockets had a reddish rock similar to the pillar, having it on your person removes the force and lets your travel through without having to strain your muscles.
This new reddish realm had some peculiar and formidable creatures, we deemed them ‘Craboleths’ as they look like giant eels like the rumored Aboleth, but had large claws and features like a lobster. We realized how VF was cut in half then. In any case, we defeated the creatures and secured meat from the creatures, as Shambler had mentioned that he required food from his own realm as the meat from ours only sustained him as he continued to lose strength. It appears VF managed a short of partnership with Shambler by providing food in exchange for the locations of these rifts that Shambler is attuned to.
Looking outside the cave on the other side, we saw a reddish landscape, a weird mockery of our own. Like a different layer of our world, colored by nightmare and a red glare. Purple wurms raged in the distance and a boat crossed the Lake of Songs. It was manned by several score of Mindflayers, and a dozen or so slaves that we could see. It was ferrying them across the lack South to North along a large guideline. The design was very interesting, though without sails nor oars seen, I believe it could only be propelled with the guideline, which is very sad as ships are meant to be free as the wind and that manner of movement is very limiting. Before I could estimate the tonnage or speed, the others pulled me away, concerned the Mindflayers would see us.
We travelled home through the pillar and then the others destroyed it by cancelling its magic. A bit impulsive if you ask me. That realm was truly interesting. Perhaps Shambler can help us find other rifts, for he said their were multiple, in exchange for food. Some, or perhaps all, of the craboleth meat was given to him on our return, which made him very happy and caused him to noticeably grow. I think some discretion is needed when dealing with the Shambler for we do not truly understand this otherworldly creature. Shambler is currently in Peppington’s care. I hope watching the creature does not prove too much for him, for the creature is formidable.
The journals of VF we found are copied below, so they do not become lost. I think there are many clues for us to follow and investigate.
- Grey
VF’s Slightly burned Journal
-First log declares this will be a separate book detailing the creature
-Says he will refer to it as a Shambler due to a story he was told as a child
-Notes about its anatomy being similar to other Aberrations
-After some tests he confirms the creature is somewhat intelligent
-Notes about attempting to communicate with the creature and getting it cooperate but failing horribly
-Notices that the creature has drastically reduced in size and is more physically weak then the first day he found him
-Prefers to eat meat and consumes a large amount of it to sustain it
-Creature is able to sense these zones like a bloodhound
VF’s Tome about Multiverse and their Arcane implications
-Theory of multiverse mostly comes form old religious manuscripts, describing the existence of the same plane in different universes
-Never proven to be true
-Several Magical theories and equations as to how spells like Plane Shift and Banishment could be further modified and amplified to be able to cross into another dimension but what little experiment that were documented have failed
VF’s Large Journal
-Logs about he is convinced that the theory and the calculations behind multiverse make sense and believes entirely that they exists
-Wants to be the one who discoverers them, believes he can bring about the largest advancement in history of the Arcane Arts
-Recounts logs of years of following leads to possible portals, rituals, ceremonies that may be able to do this. Most of them being from old religions and cults all were cold leads.
-Describes on instance of investigating the aftermath of a large explosion caused by a suspected cult at a derelict place of worship. Finds relics and tomes that relate to old Eldritch gods, at ground zero of the incident he describes finding a small and wounded creature phasing in and out existence.
-Several logs about the creature, as it grows and is unable to find any sort of documentation about it or anything similar.
-He fully believes this creature might be the key to finding what he wants.
-Several years of nothing significant.
-Document him hearing about and traveling to the island after rumors of its history start to circulate
-Mentions of the deep one attack
-Talks about investigating the surrounding area
-Large gap of time between the next log. Tone of his writing is dramatically different. He talks about how his dream has become his nightmare and reality. He describes a world like ours but, one where the Aberrations are the ruling race and have been for a long amount of time.
-He describes these zones that serve and some sort of bridge between our universes
-He says that both the ones found in our and theirs are in no way some sort of natural cause and believes them to be engineered as he now fears someone is trying to merge our cross over into ours
-The next few logs are series of observations made over the period of a month
-Actual physical travel via these zones can traumatic, both physical and mentally. It says it helps if you have some sort of anchor of both realms. Items such as stone from their plain seems to be effective and his own physical body served as an anchor to our own.
-The zones also seem to react unusually to light, theorizing this might have something to do with how little direct sunlight they have
-He attempts to banish the Shambler but the creature reappears after a minute
-He attempts to send the creature through the zone but he violently shifts in and out of existence before being forced out of the zone suffering several injuries
-He travels to the other plain with a tuning fork
-He tries to cast Plain Shift from our plain with the tuning fork and the spell does not take
-He traveled to the Fey Wild and attempted to cast Plain Shift, the spell takes but he is sent to our Material Plain
-Another gap in his logs before his final log “The creature seems to think there is another there but to hell if I am going into that infested forest and ending up as a meal for those insects”