From the journal of Vedis Valentine
Still in the Flow. Still not dreaming. I hate this place. I can't use fire, can't dream, and can't die from spacing myself to alleviate the boredom. Some times I wish I hadn't stopped drinking absynthe so I could have SOME means of escaping these long trips. Waking hallucinatory dreams are better than no dreams at all. I think I'm losing my mind.
I've taken out the letter Ef gave me to read almost every day. I can't help myself. It bothers me that I can't… just… forget about it the way I did with those two elves. Or with that nameless lovely man who made my night all those weeks ago before we left on this miserable journey.
I've been bothering Lenata constantly with "Are we there yet?" inquiries. I think she might snap one day. Could be fun.
My quarters get so lonely at night, even with Simmi there to entertain/distract/infuriate me. I've gotten bored of rolling around in my gold coin collection. I thought that could never get old.
The waiting is KILLING me. I'm about to head on deck to try to see what I can do to stir things up.
From the journal of Kenari Sanura
Indeed… it wasn't until we were a few days into the sphere of the Spawn of Zyros (fanatic lizardmen) that Tolvin showed his true colors. I was not there for the initial confrontation between Ef Utan, Word and him… but once their 'talk' got heated enough to be heard below decks, I knew I had to go check things out.
"…enough with the lies, Tolvin… my bulls**t meter is going off the scale. Tell us what you're really doing with those dragonflies, or you're going to be cleaning bug stains off the deck for a week!"
Hmmn… curious… I wonder what he was up to?
I make my way down to his makeshift lab and find that there are now three fewer Hummer Flies than he had when he boarded. I turn to rejoin them but find that they've decided to come to the lab as well.
"Come on, Tolvin… I'm sure I've got a flyswatter big enough for these things…" I threaten as I shake the cage.
Lenata gestures behind the sweating Elf. "Tolvin, why and how you are spying for the Scro?" she asks softly.
"They… they captured my family… offered me money…" the Elf stutters under the power of Lenata's spell. "The Hummer Flies capture sound. If you speak into their rear ends it acts like a recorder… and then I release them go to where they were trained."
That bastard! I sneer in disgust at the sniveling Elf. The fact that he mentioned his family being kidnapped is the only thing keeping me from tossing this traitor overboard.
"So… what do we do with him?" Ef Utan asks the rest of us.
"Squish the bugs and toss him overboard?" Lenata suggests.
Ooo… so the priestess has a blood-thirsty streak after all… I have to admit, I'm surprised enough by this that it makes me think twice.
"Hmmn… if you think about it, we've got an opportunity here," I mutter as I scratch my chin. "The Scro don't know we know about him, and there's two flies left… so why not send some of our OWN messages to lead them off of our trail?"
"That could work," Ef Utan agrees after a moment. "What do we do with him, though?"
I look to Tolvin and smile evilly at him. "We need someone to clean out Elliwinkle's stable on this trip, don't we?"
Ef Utan chuckles. "You just don't want to clean up after your hamster yourself, Kenari."
"Can you blame me? Have you seen the size of those things?"
"It's late… for now, I suggest that we record the messages and then lock him up away from the bugs." Ef Utan decides as he rubs the sleep from his eyes.
"As I do not require rest such as you, I will offer my services to guard the prisoner," Word offers.
"Excellent. Thank you, Word. The rest of you, I suggest we try to get some more rest while we can… things are bound to get busy from here on in."
And with that I return to my hammock, but Dassam's warm embrace can't stop the thoughts of what else might be waiting for us in the shadows…
Kora's migraine headaches pretty much explain her behaviors and Tolvin is locked in his quarters under guard by Word, so that just leaves the Shu seer to investigate while we make our way to this "Shadowsphere."
If the others truly suspect Dassam of anything, then they can very well ask him themselves, can't they? I can testify that he doesn't hide anything under his clothes other than an impressive…well…the seer, right? I was talking about the Shu seer. Yeah.
"I think Lenata should talk to him!" I offer over breakfast the next day. "They both talk to their gods and all… so maybe he'd be willing to talk to her? If he's lamenting about how he's 'not whole' and doesn't seem to be radiating much magic, then maybe there's an off-chance he doesn't realize the limitations of the phlogiston?"
"Why would the EIN send us a seer who has no experience with the flow?" Vedis asks doubtfully.
"We're assuming that the EIN sent us these people because they were helpful. Heck… I think they just sent us these guys because they couldn't figure out which of the three was the spy and they wanted us to do their dirty work," I scoff.
"How exactly do I broach that kind of subject?" Lenata asks.
"Well, if the smooth-talk isn't your kind of thing, I've found that the truth works pretty well," I offer with a shrug. "Half the time people don't believe me when I tell them the truth anyway…"
"O-kay…" Lenata reluctantly agrees, "I'll give it a shot and we'll see what happens."
The rest of the day passes (surprisingly) rather uneventfully other than a passing school of playful… well… "space" dolphins, I guess. I thought we'd have more trouble with the Spawn of Zyros, but I guess these fanatical lizardmen are too wrapped up in their God-worship to bother with spelljammers. Small blessings, eh?
The next day Lenata informs us that the seer is pretty closed-lipped about the whole thing, but said he'd talk to her later about it. At least she asked Takero to continue watching him… because I know when my tail is being pulled.
It's not till the next day that something truly interesting happens. Unfortunately with us, "interesting" doesn't always mean "good."
Usually when my hammock rocks out of control it's because Dassam and I are playing around… but this time we're both actually sleeping when the ship comes to a sudden stop and I find myself grabbing onto the netting. Once everything rights itself I hop out of the hammock and hurriedly throw on my shiftweave and my gun belt before heading to the deck to see what (if anything) we might have hit.
When I get above I run over to Hatuk who is talking heatedly with the Positai as the other Hadozee whisper to themselves. "What the heck happened? Did we hit something?" I ask as I lean over the rail to scan for damage.
"Nothing that we've been able to see… we just… stopped," Hatuk says with a shrug before hopping into the rigging to scold some of the other crew.
"I'm giving it all she's got," I can hear Ef Utan declare through the tubes. "Why isn't she moving?"
Hmmn… there doesn't seem to be anything out there causing us to stop that I can see… and it doesn't look like the ship is pushing against anything invisible, so…
Waitaminute. Why is Ef Utan piloting? Isn't this Lenata's shift? My stomach drops as I remember what happened to Kelson when he was struck with Spelljammer Sickness. Any curing I could provide wouldn't help her… but at least I can help the rest of the crew that got knocked about when we stopped. At least Ef Utan is there to help her, and probably the others too.
It's when I'm using my wand to help set a particularly nasty broken arm that a rather irritated Kora stomps up to me. "I've got some bad news about the ship… have you seen the captain?"
"Vedis? I'd try the Helm-room," I reply over my shoulder. "If not there, maybe her quarters?"
"Thanks, I'll try her quarters…" I hear her mumble as she leaves.
"Hey, at least bad news is better than no news, right?" I yell after her. Once I make sure the crew above are ok, I head down below decks to see if I can catch what Kora has to say.
"…a Sargasso is like a dead zone," I make out as I jog down the stairs. "This one just happens to be a dead zone for things like wood and metal," Kora explains with a frustrated sigh. "Everything by all means should be working… it just… isn't."
"Well, we could always use the sails and just go somewhere else, right?" I ask as I lean against the doorjamb.
"Yes, let's just go to another plane and move out of the Sargasso before we switch back!" Vedis agrees with a snap of her fingers.
"Excuse me… you want to do WHAT?" Kora asks incredulously.
"We're going to use our special sails to switch to another plane, move past the Sargasso, and then switch back to the Prime Material," Vedis explains as she takes Kora by the shoulder. "Please, don't tell anyone else about this…"
"I have to report this to the EIN when we return," Kora replied.
"The EIN are nowhere near here right now and those sails are going to remain secret," I retort with a sigh, "so it's time to decide, Kora. Either you can keep our secret, stay with us and be the engineer on a haunted ship where you can be yourself headaches and all… or… we can always put you in the paddleboat with Tolvin and you both can explain things to the EIN if they still exist by the time you finally make it back to civilization."
Vedis gasps, apparently shocked by my ultimatum. Funny… considering this is more of a chance than Lenata was going to give Tolvin… what's a few hundred years to an Elf, anyway?
"So, how is Lenata, by the way?" I ask Vedis. I've said my peace to Kora and she can't exactly tell the EIN anything until we get back, so we'll worry about her later.
"The shock of the stop knocked her unconscious, but she should be okay after some rest," Vedis replied. "Ef Utan is taking his shift early in her stead."
"All right then… Kora, why don't you help me get the sails ready? This is going to be fun!"
"I don't know if the Ethereal would be a good choice…" Ef Utan says as he scratches his chin. "We aren't really sure how far away our destination is, so we don't want to chance totally passing it by with the distance differences and all."
"Well, I've always wanted to try the Elemental Plane of Air…" I suggest.
"Hmmn… we do need fresh air for the ship, but all things considered, we don't really know about the distance differences there, either. One good gust of air and we could be halfway across the flow." Suddenly he smiles. "I know… how about we go to somebody's afterlife? I hear Ysgard is nice this time of year."
Ysgard….Ysgard…. "Wait.. the Norse? Aren't they a bit of a rowdy bunch?" I say doubtfully.
"Compared to Acheron, Ysguard is a picnic vacation," Ef Utan scoffs. "Trust me… you'll like it!"
"Over there is the World Tree that holds their plane together," Ef Utan points out as we all hang out on deck to appreciate the view. "Underneath us is the constant battle of Ragnarok. Great thing is that this place is not only positive dominant (which means we heal faster), but it's a plane of strife, so if you die here in battle, you come back again!"
"Good to know," I say as I flip my toothpick out amongst the throngs. "Unless you happen to know where we come back though… I don't think I'll be checking things out anytime soon."
To Ef Utan's credit, I am quite impressed with the place. I don't think I'd want this to be my afterlife anytime soon, however… as the war surging beneath our ship over the vast disc of Ysgard seems to have been going on for quite a while. That tree, though… that's something else as it stretches beyond the eye can see. Maybe when we're less occupied with EIN matters, we can check this place out more thoroughly.
As we're contemplating the scenery, a groggy Lenata stumbles out on deck, grunts, and quickly goes back to her quarters. "Seeing as we've still got wounded and all," I suggest to Ef Utan, "maybe once we've travelled long enough we should stick around for a bit and make sure everyone is healed."
"Good idea," Ef Utan nods. "Considering the shit we're bound to get into, best to have the crew in better spirits."
Indeed… I think we're going to need all the help we can get.
Once we've made sure Lenata and the crew have fully recovered from our encounter with the Deadwood Sargasso, we cross our fingers, hold our breath and activate the planar sails to get ourselves back to the Prime Material. Unfortunately, being in the uncharted area that we are… there really is no telling if we're in the right place or not. All we have to go on is the map the EIN gave us… so our fates are tied to the quality of their cartographers.
I guess this is one occasion where I hope that their anal attitude about things pays off.
We travel for what feels like five days down through the thick mists of the flow when once again, something "interesting" happens. No sudden stops this time, though… just freaked-out crew running through the hallways like their pants are on fire.
I pop my head out into the hallway to see an annoyed Vedis shaking her head at the retreating crewmembers. "Shall we go check it out?" I offer as I nod toward the apparent source of the problem, which to my surprise seems to be Ef Utan's room. "I wonder what was so scary? Do you think they walked in on him changing clothes or something?" I laugh.
"Might as well see what it is this time," Vedis mutters as we walk down the hall and cautiously open the door to find the walls of the room dripping blood in red rusty streaks.
"What… AGAIN?" I groan in frustration. "Do they know how hard it is to get those stains out?"
"Seriously," Vedis replies as she slaps her thighs. "We travel through the Ethereal Plane and hold séances… nothing. We got out in the middle of nowhere in the flow minding our own business, and BAM!"
"I'll go get the priest," I mutter.
After a quick update, with a few muttered words the cleric of Celestian emits a wave of positive energy that leaves me feeling warm and tingly and puts a halt to the bleeding walls. "This room is clean from spirits anyway," she jokes before heading above to ease the minds of the worried crew.
"You know Kenari, I was thinking…" Vedis starts as she looks around the once bloody room. "it seems that all of the times we've seen the blood, it's been in this section of the ship." She turns to me with her hands on her hips. "Do you think something might have happened in this room to be the focus of it?"
"You're the psychic, not me," I chuckle as I run my hands along the cracks of the walls. A few minutes later a particular panel catches my eye. "It seems that this section of the wall is newer than the rest of it, though."
"Hmmn… let's get Hatuk and Kora, and see if we can open up that panel and see what might be inside. You never know… it could be a skeleton, a bloody weapon, proof of a crime, who knows?" Vedis says excitedly.
After about an hour of arguing and explaining to Hatuk and Kora that we'll be perfectly fine in our air envelope if we pry open a panel in our ship and that Lenata will stop any bad spirits, we finally are able to pry off the panel to look at the innards of the hull.
"Do you see anything interesting?" I ask to Vedis as she peers closer at the exposed struts. Honestly, I'm kind of hoping we find something cool to add to the stories of the Nomad.
After a moment she sighs dejectedly. "No… there's nothing here."
Hatuk immediately spews forth a string of epitaphs in his tongue that make me wince. I haven't learned Hadozee yet, but I've heard enough hanging out with the crew in the rigging to pick out a few choice words. "Does your mother know the kind of things that come out of that mouth?" I laugh.
Hatuk snorts. "Who do you think taught me?"
"You know," Lenata begins as she takes a peek, "my positive energy wave might have something to do with nothing being here right now. How about we give it some time to wear off and check again later?"
Right, right… I could just kick myself.
With a few more muttered curses the panel is replaced and we decide to just let the crew know to avoid this room until further notice.
…it's up to Ef Utan if he still wants to sleep in here.
After a few more days of travelling through the mists of the uncharted flow we finally spot a dark cloud in the distance. Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that it's the dark cloud we're actually looking for, and not some other event or creature out to kill us.
As we get closer to the cloud we can spy steely grey bits through the dark swirls and consult with our charts to bring our ship alongside one of the listed entrances to the sphere on the map later that day.
"Here goes everything," I mutter as I gaze at the tunnel of dark clouds that Lenata expertly pilots us through. When we get to the end I whip out one of the magical scrolls given to us by the EIN and a portal opens for our ship to slide through. The energy of the portal crackles around us and makes my fur stand on end, while our new friend Word unfortunately gets battered about. One of the down sides about being made of metal… but I'm sure Lenata will be able to mend him once we're through.
When the ship fully enters the sphere, I can't help but notice that everything feels colder… and that there is a thin haze over everything. It's like this shadowy stuff permeates everything here to the point that I can almost taste it.
"Nothing is moving," Lenata's voice echoes over the tubes. "All of the orbits are stationary. Seriously odd."
"Well it's not of the Negative Plane," I hear the Positai mutter to himself. Well, that's a relief anyway.
Yeah… as if the sickly-green glowing pyramid acting like a sun wasn't odd enough. This place can't be natural… which means somebody made it for a specific reason. We've got a sphere in an uncharted land hidden by shadows with no actual openings to it that contains a system seemingly frozen in time. Could this all have been created to contain the Witchlight Marauders… or something else that we don't even know about yet? Whatever is here… I get the feeling that it was kept hidden for a reason.
How exactly did the EIN learn of this place and the existence of anything in it, anyway?
…I've got a bad feeling about this.