Session Notes: 10/15/2023
Taraaq snaps to consciousness while going through a very narrow alleyway. Taraaq knows that he can turn the connection between them off and on in a sort of privacy moment, but he lost all contact with Rohan while Rohan was in the library, and again last night. Taraaq isn’t sure what happened or what’s going on. Taraaq is currently in Rohan’s body and Rohan’s taken quite the beating, with minimal health. He understands that Rohan is unconscious and will be back at some point. There are voices saying that he couldn’t have gotten far, search for him.
Taraaq takes a moment to try to get his bearings but he decides there isn’t enough time so he turns and starts to run away from the voices. It’s hard: he’s having to breathe, move a body, but it’s exhilarating. He makes it to a crowd of people and it is morning. He has no clue how much time has passed — it could be literally days, or it could have been a few hours. As an immortal the idea of time passing is hard. He asks himself what Rohan would do and starts to try to be chill and walk down the street, which seems to be working well.
Dia is calling out on the group call asking for Rohan. Taraaq responds, trying really hard to be normal and Rohan. Dia asks for details which Tarohan keeps saying that we can talk when he gets back, he didn’t do anything serious, and Iskra asks if he slept with an Orc (no! Definitely not!). The party discusses the possibilities of what’s going on and Taraaq makes his way back to the museum. He finds Dia in the kitchen, a ball of anxiety, and she immediately starts fussing over him.
Iskra and Dia fix Rohan’s body and heals it up to full and Taraaq notices that Rohan is not coming back. Taraaq says that it is a long story and they need to leave asap. Dia explains that we should definitely find the Bloodsoaked Banner but while we pack Rohan needs to tell her what happened, and Dia asks what happened. Iskra can tell that the trauma is from a magical attack — he can tell the burns were from nonmagical fire, and demons have been on Iskra’s mind lately.
Iskra starts asking questions and Taraaq says that his family was causing problems and we definitely don’t need to talk about it or explore it more. Iskra and Inky can tell that something is wrong and Iskra says that we need a conversation with Taraaq and Rohan needs to start being honest with us if we are to move forward. Taraaq as Rohan says sure we can talk about this, but right now is a bad time, Taraaq needs to fill out paperwork, and we’ll get there. We get our stuff packed and explain that we will continue this conversation later.
Kestrel St. Clair messages Taraaq and explains what he’s doing: he’s pretending to be upper class so his daughter can go to a nice school, and he summarizes his current scam. He sends over a picture of himself in an apron making pancakes that’s cheeky. Taraaq freaks out for a moment, then respond with a generic message about how right now’s not a good time because we’re in a bind. Kestrel gives a thumbs up and we all get on the boat with Bronze and head north. Once things get going we all sit down for tea and bully Tarohan into sitting down with us and talking.
Dia explains that Rohan’s family is dangerous and if they’re coming after him we need to get ready and prepare for it. Tarohan gets misty-eyed and Dia hugs him and Taraaq gives a single manly tear for that. Taraaq gently pushes Dia away and says we don’t need to do that, and he is confused that we care for him as much as we do. We explain that we do care for him very much and will go out of our way to help him and he struggles with that.
Taraaq ultimately blurts out that he didn’t know what was going on and he doesn’t know where Rohan is, which makes Inky poke Rohan hard to see if Rohan is an illusion. Dia asks if it’s Taraaq (confirmed) and Dia asks if Rohan is in Taraaq’s body, and Taraaq says he isn’t sure, and he’s not sure where Rohan is, but Rohan is still alive because Taraaq is here. Taraaq explains that this possession is entirely on accident. Arythas asks what happened to Rohan’s room and if Taraaq knew anything beforehand, and Taraaq isn’t completely sure: some things are blank. As he starts to talk, he stops, seeming to recall something. Taraaq says that he thinks it was Rohan’s family and they somehow cut the connection.
Iskra asks about the part of the family being demons. Taraaq was looking into it and it seems his father might be a demon, yes. Iskra felt the fire on Rohan’s body and it didn’t feel like nature’s flame. Dia proposes that the spell she made to summon an elemental spirit: could it be tweaked to summon a spirit spirit? She wants to summon Rohan. Dia can tell that Rohan is still in there inside of the body, but he is asleep somewhere inside. Something has happened to cause this. Dia is thinking this over as she looks Rohan over, realizing that it’s like Rohan’s asleep and that Taraaq is puppeting the body.
Taraaq recalls that an actual demon lord is connected with Rohan’s mother so there is some very powerful magic that is likely involved. Whatever happened was unleashed by the two tieflings trying to find Rohan. He knows that Pratima was kidnapped.
Dia asks if Taraaq is okay taking care of the body while we travel, or does he want Rohan back right now? It might be okay just waiting things out and getting a good night’s sleep and letting the soul rest a bit, but Dia has an idea that may or may not work. Dia explains that she has a spell that reaches inside to heal the soul (spirit link) and that it is possible that it may work. We could all spirit link to lessen the load on Dia.
Inky and Iskra knows that if you make a contract with a being, this possession might happen. It could be malevolent in some way (typically, it is) but it can happen to save someone in times of great stress.
We ritual cast spirit link together. We all shift into Rohan’s mind and we appear to be in a memory. The memory is a bit fuzzy at first because of a snowstorm, and it’s the monastery that we all met. Taraaq is with us, and he is in a demonic form here — he seems almost like an icy ifrit, almost. The rest of us are how Rohan remembers us: Arythas is much bigger, with cruel looking points coming off of his head and shoulders and armor. Inky is a cartoon version of himself, more or less. Dia is next to crying. Iskra can just see, there is no wolf. We try to figure out where Rohan is and we discuss, with Arythas suggesting we head to the monastery because all of our paths converged there. Dia is concerned we’ll be in the sin maze, but we all decide to continue on.
We get to the gate and then open the door and step inside another memory, the orphanage. Inside the orphanage it’s a warm summer’s day, it looks a bit like a school with large windows. There is no demonic presence at all, and there are a lot of children running around — all the children are faceless, as this is a memory rather than being actual people. This is a dormitory for the children as a shared space. We move through this and it’s clearly a core memory of some sort. There’s a lot of laughter and children playing — overall the place is nice, but given Taraaq we know what this place was. The orphanage was mostly human, some half-elves, some half-orcs, and some orphans from the last war (such as dwarves). We find the bunk that must have been Rohan’s, as a beam of light dramatically streams in to illuminate the bed. Rohan isn’t in the bed, but his diary is, which Dia picks up to read. The diary describes the last thing Rohan remembers: being awakened in the night, teleported somewhere, Pratima there saying that she had no idea, and the voice saying “mama will make it all better”. Dia reads this, then looks at Taraaq, then starts to read it out loud.
Dia apologizes and Taraaq says it’s not our fault, and Dia says we can’t do anything. She wants to say we can go back and rescue her, but given the state Taraaq was in, and what we know, she’s not sure that we can. Arythas explains if they were smart she would have been moved, and Taraaq explains that he had to get Rohan out and safe. The diary is shining and is clearly important, so Dia puts the diary in her pack. Some doors show up that weren’t there before.
Dia goes through the first door and it’s a dirty street with a very scared looking Dia running and toppling into Rohan. There is a conversation there that is mostly lost in echoing sounds. Three guys step into the alley and Rohan being who he is does something grand and distracting before throwing a rock at one, grabbing Dia’s hand, and running. Dia picks the rock up, as it is glowing, and the rock merges into the diary. The diary sort of grows more translucent but still she can hold it. As we move down the alley it grows darker, and darker, and darker, until we see a light at the end of the alley.
We come out in the library when Inky took him. Rohan gets whacked by Mattai, but with Rohan’s memory it’s an epic duel and Mattai is this enormous Dragonborn. In the memory, Rohan bests Mattai and she agrees to help him by creating the tattoos to help bind his magic. Mattai does look at Inky an wink. She mentions that this form isn’t her favorite and she needs to get back to her work. Mattai’s staff is what glows, and we take it.
The floor flips and suddenly we’re in the dream with Iskra. We can smell the hazy fumes of fey weed. They discuss how they feel with everything and how they don’t have full control of themselves. The pipe is what glows in this case. He takes a puff and passes it over to the real Iskra. By now the book has stopped looking like anything specific, it’s just a faint light that Dia is holding in her hands. Everything turns to smoke and dissipates.
We’re on the ship, and it’s the conversation where Rohan comes clean about Taraaq and in this dream, Arythas is roaring and growling and is so much larger than he actually is, and is so much angrier than Arythas actually was. Arythas strikes out and that is the item that is required to finish the light, waking Rohan up.
Rohan is here. In his dreamscape, Rohan seems younger, and is almost like a terrified teenager (16ish). Rohan starts asking if we’re here, if he did it, and he starts bumbling with words, and Dia hugs Rohan. Arythas explains that we used a spell to come here into a dreamscape and that Taraaq had accidentally possessed him and everything is safe. Rohan wants to wake up, he doesn’t want to stay here, and we all hold hands and Dia breaks the spell. We come to on the boat and we realize it’s been a couple of hours.
There’s a fuzzy sound like static and Rohan hears Taraaq. Taraaq asks if Rohan’s okay, and Rohan says he thinks so? Taraaq explains that he had to save Rohan and that Taraaq tried to keep it cool, but he had to tell everyone, and he’s glad that we were able to bring Rohan back. Taraaq explains over and over that he just was trying to save Rohan, and we reiterate that he was possessed by Taraaq, and Arythas brings up that Pratima had to be left behind. We all explain that Taraaq did his best and that he didn’t have a choice in the matter, really.
Dia makes more tea and we sit around and chat about what happened while we leave Rohan in his bedroll to process. We reassure Dia about the spell and that it’s lucky we had something like that to bring Rohan back to us. She admits to being scared and Iskra tries to give her a pep talk abut doesn’t really make the right points. We discuss what all we saw in the dream.
Something that we do not see is that as the dreamscape that we created dissipates into the astral sea, bits of it go into the aether and further and further and further, and within the depths of the sea, a creature that at this point is little more than the idea of teeth, smiles. It says to itself, “dream!”.