Session Eleven
The morning air is crisp with the smell of rain, a cool breeze sends waves through the grass. The sun peeks over the shallow hills of the field, bright rays shine into the small shack the party has found themselves in. Seven is quite rattled from getting struck by lightning the night before, but suggests the party should talk about their strange encounters and try and unpack what happened to Rainn. Bishop, is keen on some sort of revenge and he's quite suspicious of Dreamweaver, especially since the mysterious creature was seemingly involved with Rainn in some significant way. As the discussion gets a bit more heated, they decide to put a pin in it. its not long before the party gets up and hits the road once again. As they travel, the grass begins to get taller and taller in length- at first it would only come up to the party's knees, but now it has risen to about their mid-chest. Suddenly, the party hears a rustling in front of them, a deep low hiss emanates from the grass. Bishop lets out an intimidating yell before the creature leaps from the bushes, bearing it's teeth. The Field Stalker weaves in and out of the grass, disappearing into it like some strange game of whack-a-mole.
The fight is longer than expected, but the wiggly creature is soon taken care of... Since the party was unable to forage for food last night, they decide to take a stab at the beast to try and eat it. Bishop, goes to town. They have a brief conversation to decompress from the fight with the strange field beast, Jax insisting Seven is more whiny than his brother... Which quickly sends Jax going quiet. The party doesn't decide to press on it, and they continue forward into the field. Once they begin to go down the path again, they finally manage to see something in the distance, a small shabby looking shack at the shore of a gradually deepening lake. The lake is deep, deep red. The ground has only gotten muddier.
Once the party reaches the shack, they notice someone is sitting on the porch reading a book. She’s a very tall sort of bulky robot. Her face is a visor that has a slightly damaged light up display. It occasionally flickers as she reads. She wears a bright yellow bandana that covers the back of her head, which is completely ripped open leaving loads of wires exposed.
Scraps and Seven greet the mysterious robot, asking if she's the ferrywoman they have heard of. The robot replies with a simple answer- "obviously". The party soon gets into how they were sent here to find Merlin. "that's what everyone says" the Ferrywoman replies to their inquiries about passing through the lake. It's not long before Smith is brought up, and the Ferrywoman quickly becomes a bit more receptive. She asks if the party can show her something in particular, or else she will not take them across the lake. Frantically the party searches their pockets, but they can't seemingly find anything the ferrywoman would want... Until the map is pulled out. Upon seeing the map, the Ferrywoman asks for it, taking it from Jax. The Ferrywoman's visor goes dark, a strange sensor seemingly flicking to life, revealing a hidden message on the map written in binary. Seven, able to read this realizes it's all of their names... except for one. Rainn. The ship is just a simple motorboat that can fit all the party, seemingly that’s it’s max capacity. The boat is heavily patched up and seemingly make-shift repaired. The Ferrywoman looks back at the party and she folds her arms. The Ferrywoman makes it VERY clear that she will not take the party back across the lake. Once the party all agrees, the Ferrywoman unties the boat from the rickety dock it resides by, hopping on and letting it float out to where the lake gets deeper. She then turns the engine on. It springs to life with a low rumble.Ryuu! — 11:16 PMThe boat begins to gently drift towards the middle of the lake as you approach a thick wall of purplish fog. The Ferrywoman kicks the boat into higher gear and the watercraft speeds into the fog, it soon enveloping the party’s entire vision. Naturally, the party begins to chat as the boat glides across the calm bloody substance of the lake. This chatter eventually leads the party to begin messing with some of Seven's menus, including the language settings. The Ferrywoman is quite obviously annoyed. But... The party begins to see small floating lights in the distance, the lights flicker in and out of existence, each a dim shade of lilac. These lights are almost hypnotic in the way they flicker. The Ferrywoman narrowly dodges massive powerline towers that fade away into the dark mist above. They let out a very low ominous hum. The lights continue to flicker in the distance, the Ferrywoman looks back at the party. “Remember, keep your wits about you.” The lights flicker in and out, now in a strange hypnotic pattern. The sounds of faint whispered memories begin to fill your mind, and an intoxicating sense of nostalgia creeps into your minds. It feels nice… You want to get closer. Most of the party shakes off this feeling... aside from one. Scraps begins to slowly make his way towards the edge of the boat, gearing up to jump into the deep lake. In a desperate attempt to get Scraps to stay on the craft, the party grabs onto his leg.... To their dismay, it was one of Scraps' prosthetics, and he goes careening into the deep red abyss below. He soon begins to swim towards the flickering lights in the distance, Jax and Bishop diving in after him making sure to grab a rope. They tie the rope to a powerline pole, and quickly swim after Scraps, they grab ahold of him, but are unable to swim back with him. To the Ferrywoman's dismay, she dives into the lake, saying "Thank god I'm waterproof!" She grabs onto the group of now blood-covered travelers and she pulls them atop the boat to safety. She soon fires up the craft once again, and they continue on their journey across the lake. Scraps, very admittedly very dazed, asks, "Guys... Where's my leg?" The Ferrywoman carefully weaves around in the fog, avoiding seemingly invisible obstacles in front of her. She’s very focused, her whole attention absorbed by what’s in front of her. You can see vague humanoid shapes in the fog, some walking, some levitating, others standing and staring. They come in and out of the dense murk, disappearing back into it once the boat gets close. You get the sensation that the fog is observing you. The lake is eerily still, unlike the field, there is no wind, the only motion is the rocking and advancing of the boat. The murky fog finally slowly begins to dissipate, it fading away revealing a star filled sky… you only felt as though you were sailing for an hour or two, but it’s clearly been much longer than that. The fog finally fades from your vision, it stands in a thick wall behind you, the humanoid shapes disappearing, all of which stare at you as you exit. You slowly pull up to the dock, this one also rickety and clearly thrown together quickly. As you finally step out onto the dock, you can faintly see a tall figure in the distance, it holds an equally tall staff that glints in the faint light. “Travelers! Glad you all made it! I’ve been waiting for you!”
End of session eleven