Session Five
Before parting with Otis, Otis hands the party a map of the upcoming area in exchange for the new fancy camera. After the party wishes him farewell they continue on their journey. The landscape has begun changing as the party gets closer to the Hollowed Wilds. Flimsy trees sprout from the flat ground, bone-like rocks lie in the flesh. The party quickly stumbles upon a strange sight, a rock has seemingly dragged itself onto the path. The rock is covered in holes with strange tendrils poking out of them. Bishop makes quick work of this rock, while Jax readies an eldrich cannon to shoot a burst of fire at the rock. Once the rock has been shot, the tendrils retract, blood dripping from the holes in the rock. Some party members struggle to climb up the rock, Jax and Seven being one of them while the rest of the party makes it over with little to no struggle. After getting over the rock, the party continues down the path (Jax with a foot soaked in blood). As the party continues to walk down the pathway they begin to see a strange mirage in the distance, the horizon line waving and in the distance five shadowy travelers can be seen, walking, but not getting any closer. The path begins to widen as the party comes up on a massive circle with five pillars, and five gaps between them. each pillar has a strange platform of bone in front of it that can be depressed. The mirage travelers have come up to greet them, mirroring exactly the party's height and where their standing. Briefly perplexed by the shadows mirroring their actions but being non-hostile the Rainn begins to get a strange feeling, a nostalgic feeling, almost like her mother was calling her for dinner. She stands on her respective pressure plate, and it depresses, a strange static barrier in the gap in the pillar disappearing. Bishop is called to a certain pressure plate via the frequency as well, he makes his way over to his respective spot, the plate depressing and the static disappearing Suddenly, all of the pressure plates lower into the ground, making the static dissipate into thin air. The party begins to walk out of the strange circle through their respective gaps in the pillars of flesh, phasing through the shadowy copies of themselves, getting a wave of bad memories upon looking in their eyes. They can feel a presence behind them, one distinctly strange and almost hostile. Bishop gets curious and turns around, seeing a shadowy creature looming above them. This creature quickly becomes hostile, triggering combat and attacking the party.
With its strange "splitting" ability which made combat a bit harder. After a long combat, the party emerges successful, but definitely not unharmed. Bishop landed the final blow, biting the face of the creature, seemingly sapping its energy as it sinks into the ground. After recuperating for a moment, the party continues on their journey. After walking down their respective paths, the pathways reconvene in a strange way, by simply blinking the party has seemingly gone forward without even walking that far. Craters begin to appear in the landscape, almost appearing like the surface of some sort of twisted moon. The pathway soon encounters one of these craters, spiraling down into it... but its not that simple, unfortunately there's a strange fleshy soup that has filled the crater. A small but sort of flimsy tree is held together by veins that Bishop quickly realizes is long enough to get them across. Jax and Rainn work together to chop down the tree, Bishop hopping across and stabilizing it from the other side. Everyone up until Rainn gets across okay, Rainn unfortunately, with her heavy armor began to lose balance, beginning to fall. Bishop runs to her rescue, trying to hoist her back up but unfortunately he begins to fall as well. Jax soon takes notice, choosing to grab onto rain to pull them both up. Phew! He's successful and the party gets across unharmed. After some light conversation about when Seven gained sentience and about the "Voice in his head" the party continues down the path the bowls of blood soon seen in the distance. After walking down a small decline in the environment the party has arrived at the bowls of blood. The bowls of blood are a series of craters filled with well.. a blood-like substance. In a larger crater, something can be seen shining beneath the surface. Bishop takes notice of something odd, he gets the sense that whatever this is, it's being held against its will underneath the surface of the blood. Without a second thought, Bishop rushes to wading through the substance in order to fetch it. Bishop grabs the strange object, it's a red stone with a pearlescent finish that's vaguely in the shape of an anatomical heart. The water begins to ripple in strange ways and Bishop rushes out of the water, handing the stone to Seven as something begins to form beneath the surface. Scraps warns everyone and they all begin bickering about weather to throw the stone back or not. Upon hearing from Bishop that it's a gift, Seven is very keen on holding onto the object. As they continue to bicker, a massive blood-serpent appears from the water, smaller heads popping up in various craters.
Combat has begun. The party takes notice that Bishop is looking quite revitalized despite the battle with the Mirage beforehand. The larger head strikes first, grappling Bishop as he tries desperately to escape its grasp, Jax gives something a try, lighting a bonfire on the surface of one of the blood pools, one of the smaller heads quickly gives way, popping and sending blood droplets flying. A weakness has been found. Bishop manages to get out of the serpent's grasp, falling out of it's mouth and sticking the landing. Blood goes flying as cantrips are cast, blades slash and stab... The party is quickly getting fatigued. After another smaller head gets damaged, sinking back into the blood, Scraps readies his crossbow, putting in a bolt and firing at the creature. The bolt hits it square in the main head's glowing eye dealing the final bit of damage to take it down. After the commotion is over, Seven can hear the strange stone speak to him, whispering it's name "dowsing stone" within a sea of static. The party has found the dowsing stone. The party, practically begging for a long rest at this point discovers a small makeshift camp at the far end of the Bowls of Blood. This small camp has a crater filled with fresh water, so the party can finally wash off all the dried blood from the cave. The party gets situated, sleeping for the night in one of the tents. This night, Rainn gets a strange dream...
Rainn finds herself in a dark room filled with water up to her waist, she’s wading through, finding various pieces of furniture floating within the water. She soon recognizes that this is her home. Various things don’t quite make sense, the environment is stretched in odd ways, some rooms are far too big or far too small… but this is her home. As you wade through the water it slowly becomes thicker, turning a deep crimson. The room she’s in has stretched into a hall and has narrowed, mirroring the environment where Cathrine was found. After squeezing through a tight gap, Rainn is met with a small, old monitor. Something gets typed onto its screen. In small green text it reads. “This blood is not on your hands.” Before the computer crashes. Rainn wakes up.