009 - 250219 - Staggering Gains
Hook:
All it seems one of our parties met a magical deer on the trail. It has glowing horns, leaves glowing footprints and is “yoked”! This deer I a treasure of the land and anything magical must be met! I humbly offer my services and abilities in the space of speaking to animals and handling animals to this quest. Would any brave adventurers want to offer protection and aid me in finding this glorious creature?
Date:
446 PC, Dawnrise 29
Players:
Draylor
Die-Anna
Loot:
?
After Actions:
Meow Minx!
It has been a while since I have written to you, I hope you are doing well. Boregard sends his regards. So fun times in the Riftspan. Bo drew a map and then an ox ate it... then a deer ate it... it was so pretty and now... its all messed up. We went on quite a journey today we were looking for a magical deer, we fought a void monster that makes no sound, we got lost at the edge of the rift, we turned around, I met another druid, Geofrey he promised to grow me grain for our stills. We talked to the Jerrys they were not a lot of help. I have a new friend Clara she is a song bird and she helped us find the deer. So heres the deal the deer is SWOLE but he doesnt LIFT, like at all. Its just genetics. He was made by druids possibly centuries ago and he is protecting the rift from something maybe the riftlings. He doesn't have much to say, he mostly just likes sleeping and fight. monsters. He has no friggin name and so Im calling him Paully D i think Die-Anna named him Carson. But basically what a jerk, no presents, no advice, just a sleepy deer. I investigated his druid ritual circle too but couldn't get a great view. You can touch it and like you see I think his creation. But yea... basically we arent any closer to me coming home. But Minx, my dear I miss you, I miss our book club, be good to the other druids, bo says hi.Meow Meow, druid symbols,
Dray
078 - 260512 - Beast Mode - Staggering Gains II
Hook:
What do you get when you mix an overconfident druid and a semi-divine deer?
Players:
Draylor
Dev
Sir Harold
After Actions:
Dev , Ashfall 25
You know I’ve never been especially devout, Soph, but I’m starting to wonder if I’m missing something. Draylor has been having some kind of existential crisis. I’m not sure where it’s coming from, exactly, but he’s trying to figure out what it means to be a druid and why he is one.
I was venturing downstairs to see what Murf blew up with today’s crazy alchemical experiment when I ran into Draylor and his shadow, Sir Harold. I still haven’t figured out who the knight pissed off to get stuck with babysitting duty, but it is kind of funny. Draylor asked me what it means to be a druid, as if I’d have any real idea. I told him that my magic comes from books and scrolls, and trying to figure out how the wizards that came before me shaped the Weave to their will so that I could do something similar or build on it. His magic comes from the divine, but he’s not even sure who his god is. Eventually we hit on the idea to go look for the Mirror Stag that Draylor and Die-Anna had encountered shortly after our arrival in the Riftspan.
We headed off to the Twilight Forest, and Draylor talked to a small bird that led us to a stone circle. I helped him make a magical billowing cape for the bird out of a piece of his scarf. It was cute. When we first saw the stag, I almost mistook it for a crystal statue until it moved. Truly, it was an awe-inspiring sight. There was an iridescent shimmer to its white coat that was made up of reflected moments in time that rippled as it moved.
The stag dipped its head and welcomed us. Draylor. Never. Said. It. Could. Talk. “Have you come seeking more physical gains?,” the stag asked in a voice we could hear in our minds.
Draylor told the stag that we came seeking knowledge. “Why druid?,” he asked.
“Why druids what?” the stag responded, confused. ”Why are you a druid? What is this storm inside your mind?”
We all listened as Draylor told his story. Sir Harold looked like it was all new to him. I’d heard a lot of the pieces before, but it hit me differently when they were all put together. Honestly, Draylor turned out pretty good, all things considered.
The Mirror Stag told us that he does not concern himself with the world beyond the Twilight Woods. When Draylor pressed him further, the stag responded “A painting cannot tell a painter how to paint.”
The stag asked us for consent to show us a memory. I didn’t know how to respond - he didn’t have to ask us to consent to anything. For all of my companions’ bluster, I harbored no illusions that we’d be able to stop the stag from doing anything he really wanted to do. Yet it did feel like we were being permitted to make a real choice, and that made me more willing to “consent.”
The Mirror Stag struck its cloven hoof against the ground and there was a clear, crystalline sound. I felt my physical form fade away as a metaphysical bridge formed between the four of us. We were someplace with no moon or stars, just a field of starlight. “I can try to guide you as I was once guided,” the stag said.
We were running through the woods, but we were running on four legs. A beast clawed at our flank, and we felt fear and pain. The deer that we were turned back into a firbolg woman and slashes at the six-foot tall obsidian thing that attacked us. This aberration from the Astral did not belong in the woods, did not belong in this reality. We were also free to attack, though we were somehow linked to the firbolg’s body. Sir Harold swung his halberd, I cast Chill Touch and Draylor summoned a herd of spectral deer. Just when I started to think we had a chance, another Moonless Hunter emerged from the woods. We were being overwhelmed, but we put up a fight. I cast Slow, Sir Harold did something to put the fear of god into one of them, and Draylor’s spectral deer harried them. Sir Harold struck down a hunter in one reality. Draylor finished the same one off in another, and two others fled. Eventually, it was too much for the firbolg and she fell to the remaining hunter in one reality even as we each killed it in three others.
The Mirror Stag returned and we were able to move again. Although we had no visible injuries, I felt scarred in a way I can’t explain. “This is one of my first memories from the time the sky was empty,” the stag said. I saw something reach through the weave and catch the dying being at the stone circle.
“I was not aware of my purpose, but this is where I became aware of who I was,” the stag said.
Draylor asked, “How do you know your purpose?” “There is a natural order to things, a shape they fill eventually,” the Mirror Stag answered.
We were back in the starry expanse. The Mirror Stag complimented Sir Harold’s fighting ability. No wonder Talia has him on babysitting duty - she can’t have anyone competent near her Combat Division goons.
Draylor asked, “I don’t understand. Was that you?” “No, that is not me. I am not that.” the stag responded.
There are more like me, the Mirror Stag told Draylor just before he shared another memory with us.
We see Sifren in the distance from the top of a hill. A magic bubble surrounds the city, and a darkened sky roils above us. The Mirror Stag stands, exhausted and heaving, but he looks up. We feel him make a connection with something below the ground. From far in the west, a beam of light strikes a creature of nightmare in the sky.
“I don’t stand alone against the creatures that come from beyond,” the stag told us. “I took part in this battle, but something in the west drove it away.”
“You have cousins?” Draylor asked, as if that might make this guardian relatable somehow.
“Not in the sense that you do,” the Mirror Stag responded after considering Draylor’s question. “Branches of a tree are all parts of a whole.”
The Mirror Stag and its cousin have been working together for a long time to protect and shelter the people who once lived in the woods that have become the Twilight Woods, but there’s a limit to what they could do and they reached it. The shifting verge monoculture took centuries to become what it is now, but the people are gone and it endures. At least it appears to have fulfilled its purpose and is no longer spreading. Just as the stag’s “cousin” is in the west, the shifting verge monoculture originally came from the east.
If I was planning to stick around long enough, I’d love to find out more about both mysteries. But I need to get back home to deal with the things that I left behind as soon as I can, not get tied down in more fanciful sidequests. Two more months to go until my contract is up, but I’m still hoping to find a way to get back sooner.
I miss you, and I hope you are ok.
Dev
Unresolved Threads
Who/what is the Mirror Stag's "cousin" to the east?
Did someone/something create the Twilight Woods for a purpose?
Could the shifting verge monoculture be removed?