Session Date: 03/30/2026
Session Begin
Faylen has been in a state of shock for the past few hours because he’s been in this realm, but it was in a different state. As it is now, these humanoids here don’t believe in magic. Faylen’s noticed that casting magic is harder (beat flat DC 7 for external magic) but casting magic on himself is still easy enough. The humanoids here took us downstairs and it looked like an afternoon sun but they were worried because the sun would come — there’s two stars. One is the sun and the other is the star. They’ve been talking about getting from the underground onto the surface for generations (as far as I understand). One of the soldiers, Keleos, showed us around Research City Epsilon. We’ve met Bion the Philosopher and it seems Philosopher is a position of power rather than just a vocation.
Faylen suddenly realizes he can still cast spells. There’s a rule that’s fully apart of almost every spell for ages: every spell I casts wants to be cast, and it can’t harm me (unless that’s what it’s supposed to do, of course). If I shrink myself so I’m tiny, I can still breathe air even though I should not be able to. There’s a thin film of magic around us allowing us to pass as looking like them. Edeis suggests we have to bring magic to this place (invent it). The humanoids are under the impression that we came to the surface from another research city.
To Faylen, a lot of things here just don’t make sense. The humanoids are reasonably human/elf-like - they speak of being from the underground, from the depths, and finding their way to the surface for generations. There is still light here, they did not develop darkvision. They have two hands, two legs, two eyes - perhaps not so ideal for an underground creature.
Tabby is concerned that if we change too much now then the Dark Demesne could wind up with power in the future. Edeis thinks about this and she admits she isn’t an expert in time travel and she will absolutely get us home, but she isn’t so sure. She wonders if we help with magic if they can be on the surface. She does say that they aren’t the Dark Demesne yet, at least - they might become it eons in the future.
Faylen had been on the surface. There had been an entrance but it was completely barred with stones and stones that could not be lifted, and this entire complex was below.
The goal for these people is to get up to the surface.
Bosch
Bosch starts exploring while Tabby rests and Mary tends to Tabby. He is looking for a way down and he takes a cursory look around.
Bosch finds some elevators and manages to figure out how to get it to go down. The further down he goes, they grow less complex. He figures out how to make the elevator stop and steps out, running around the corridors to look around. He sees a pane of glass in a window that is broken, but there is nobody around. He gets a mischievous smile on his face.
The Rest of the Party
We find Bion and he asks how we are doing.
Bion comments that everyone is concerned with the project but not everyone is concerned with the surface and thinking about things. People do their jobs and fulfill their purposes and his purpose is to think and wonder. He’s excited and worried both - they leave the underground and what then? They populate the surface? There are animals? He’s excited at the prospect and he wants to go up there to see.
Faylen advises caution about going out there and Bion agrees and says that we need to do this smart: go during the half day, recreate or find where we cut through the surface and perhaps triangulate which research city we’re from. Faylen glances at Edeis and she offers herself up for research with Tabby offering himself up as well. Faylen offers to look over notes of people affected by the Sun with Mary - an extra set of eyes might help find something that was otherwise missed.
Bosch
Bosch looks around and says, “I think you’re right Bean, maybe this is a bad idea.” He’s hanging from his crowbar looped into the broken window and realizing there’s nowhere to go. He climbs back up into the tunnel and then throws his paint supplies into the abyss to see how long they fall. Darkness swallows them almost immediately and then he doesn’t hear anything thereafter. He looks after the paint supplies from where it’s stable for him to stand.
In the darkness of the chasm one enormous eye opens once, and then closes. The eye is as large as this huge chasm. Bosch carefully balances his way along the glass in the eye’s general direction or toward a way to go down toward it. He slips and falls over and opts to just crawl along to be safe.
The eye opens again, this time in Bosch’s mind, and he hears a voice asking him what he is. Bosch explains he’s a visitor or a goblin. Bosch asks the thing the same, and there is no response. Bosch makes it to the end of the walkway and does not fall into the chasm. As he’s sitting there, the cup with blue sand falls into the chasm, though Bosch doesn’t notice this.
He eventually makes his way back to Bean and gets back on the elevator and goes up a little and forgets where he came from and sets off down the wrong tunnel. He wanders for long while and will eventually make his way back to the group.
The Rest of the Party
Tabby and Edeis are being poked and prodded. It’s mostly Bion who is doing the poking and prodding while his assistants take notes. Tabby notices that these guys have tools and they use them but there’s no understanding as to where it comes from or how they know to use all of this.
Mary and Faylen looks over the notes and it seems like there’s no pattern as to what is happening. It’s just a lot of weird things happening. Every single thing that happens is different and there haven’t been that much because the moment some people fell apart or whatever weird thing, people of course retreated. It’s very clear to both of us that magic absolutely exists in this world somewhere, even if these people are against magic, it totally exists. There is some kind of probably malevolent force that is at work here.
They eventually finish poking and prodding Tabby and Edeis. Bion says that there is so much they’re learning even right now. Tabby ultimately asks where Bosch is and we look and admit we don’t know where he’s wandered off to. Bion wishes that we knew where he was and it’s clear that he doesn’t want Bosch wandering around unattended. We make our way to go get some food and wait for Bosch to come back up.
We wave Bosch over and he says he found something that is probably bad. Bosch can’t seem to recall so Faylen asks where he explored and he says he went down and he went walking around and he doesn’t quite remember - it felt like a dream to him, and he couldn’t recall where exactly he was and the more he’s trying to remember the further away it feels. Mary asks Bean if she recalls where they were, and Bean says that they went down and it was dark.
We have time to kill, so Faylen suggests that we go down to try and see if we can find what Bosch found since Bosch has the distinct feeling it’s bad. Mary manages to follow Bosch’s trail and we go back and very, very carefully Tabby, Bosch, and Faylen climb up to where Bosch was. We slowly, carefully make our way to where Bosch had been.
Bosch comments that he no longer has his paint set and comments that he wishes he had it so he could throw it down - Bean comments he already did (to Mary). Bosch fishes his compass out to throw it out and Faylen quickly snatches that from his hand and puts chalk in his hand instead. He throws the chalk and we don’t hear it hit the bottom. Faylen lights a second torch and drops it down. The torch falls for so long that the light is swallowed by darkness. Bosch steals a torch from Faylen’s pack and comments that the fire looks like an eye as it falls down, which Faylen says is a weird comparison.
As the fire goes down we notice that the structures are abandoned. As people moved up closer to the surface, lower layers are completely abandoned and in a state of complete disrepair - crumbling, rather than barely maintained.
Faylen eventually starts to dump his thoughts about how weird everything is right now. Why do these people look like surface dwellers but come from the bottom, why would they dig down and then come back up?
We go up and we see the star, which is what we understand as a sun. It looks like perpetual afternoon. Then we see an enormous eye taking over the entire sky and then it closes. Bion says, “see? The sun went down!”