RISEN
Chapter
Between Lands (1)
The First Time
Mumuk Ungart arrives in Westwood forest at night, near a tiefling named Merut Neramore. Neither are entirely sure of the manner of which they arrived, but they knew from where they had come, and where they were going. A refuge, from the incoming front-lines. The pair soon encountered a fire genasi named Fiore Illumnari and a high elf named Lucchi Amatoguwu. Similarly circumstanced, the two began to walk together (with Mumuk keeping a safe dwarven distance between them) when they shortly found a half drow, another taking the path. Soon enough, they all were there, outside the many packed barns and lodgings, stepping between rows of sleeping innocents. The only people awake here are a sentry elf and a stoic red maned Minotaur who deny's the party indoor shelter. In the morn the party eat around the fire with this minotaur, scheming for job opportunities. Around the property 'Westwood Farms', the group observes tapestries depicting a harvest festival and the week old stock, unpreserved, left to rot. None knew who the owner of the land was, but there was a leader, 'Old Sinsnow', a decrepit human who advised the party that the only work he could offer was searching the butchers'. The last export of produce was rank and diseased and he needed someone to perform a wellness check on his behalf. The party decided to forgo this offer of work when they noticed a suspicious degree of secrecy around a canopied gazebo. Using a mixture of distraction techniques and stealth, by working together, they found out what was inside. A man tied to a post, with a suit and pistols shut in a chest beside him. The party question him and Veilyn tortures him spurred on by Luchii. He identifies himself as John Styx as says he's been captured and that he is the land owner. Mumuk sees what Veilyn has done and releases John.
Between Lands (2)
Amdist the Green
Mummuk Ungart flipped up to a right angle position, finding himself sitting in a shallow grave. Confused as to the events leading to his circumstances, he looked around and saw the familiar clearing in Westwood where he met his companions. Looking back around, he found four more shallow graves. One by one, the other party members sprouted from the earth, equally confused. All of them wore tattered clothes and tried to think back as to how they had become this way. the last thing anyone remembered was John Styx. In a hysterically panic, Lucchi charged off into town, leaving the others to catch up to her as she. After Lucchi began to brawl with the guards, desperate to question John Styx, the party jump in to help. The guards are dispatched with ease. Inside Jon Styx's tent, he is exactly as he had been when he was found before, tied and beaten. The only difference, was that Veilyn still had the belongings she had taken from him. After getting no answers and spurred on by an incredulous Lucchi. Veilyn killed John Styx. Whilst the interrogation happened. Mumuk ran off to steal horses for the party as to make a quick get away before people begn to see what all the commotion was. Merut went to follow, but realised Fiore was staring blankly, she had been feeling a sickness, a corruption within her since waking in the grave. After falling behind Mumuk, Merut and Fiore were cut off by the Minotaur they had seen before. He was concerned for them and spoke confusing words about them being buried. He reunited Mumuk with Merut and Fiore, then to Veilyn and Lucchi also. He promised he was going to explain everything once he had proof that the party could not refute. They woke up in shallow graves again, dug up by the Minotaur 'Flea'. He swore that he had killed them and buried them in the earth, but the day had repeated, as it had for him many times. From his own understanding, anyone who dies will grow again, but unless they are sheltered by earth, their memories of the day before will be taken and the day will happen again. Furthermore, it becomes impossible to pass beyond the Westwood territories as some unseeable force pulls you back like a magnet. After further clarifications and questioning, the party decided that they had to get answers for themselves.
Manor
Chapter
Between Lands (3)
The Whining in Westwood Manor
The first point of interest the party decides to investigate, is the manor in the woods, a stones throw from where they had been buried. They broke through a window and landed in a sullen study. The chairs were rained through and the shelved had collapsed. In the adjacent office , the party began to hear quiet moans, gasps, breathing, as though the very walls that encased them, were suffering. Merut tried to follow the sound and began to break through a wall, while the others entered a second door from the study. Inside was yet another work room or office. It had a strange spiralling wooden decoration grown into the boards. AHead the path to a grand entrance was blocked by rubble, so Mumuk and Fiore began to try and pass the way. Lucchi snuck off to find that Merut had broken through the wall and opened up a route. She continued by herself, exploring the halls. Merut found a scrawny and feeble man, collapsed in the rubble in the grand entrance, whining. He was the houses wailing, an adventurous bard who had fallen through the weak upstairs balconies. The man was a bard, but he was to Merut as Westwood manor was to Castle Derindel. He had all the charisma one could expect to find in such a haunting place. When Mumuk found a route through the rubble and lead Flea, Fiore and Veilyn through, Lucchi too returned. The bard, Samworthy Sandlewood introduced himself confidently to Fiore, completely unlike his pathetic display from moments before, but it only lasted a moment as Fiore shot down his advancements. The party decided to finish searching the manor by checking upstairs. They all carefully navigated the wrecked landings and found one room to have something of interest within. In the centre of a furniture stripped room, was some grand lamp. I was shaped like an alchemists test tube, but upturned, mounted on a large crate and with a metre of height. Inside, strange paper thin images span around in a slow rotation. The forms they took were of Mumuk, Veilyn, Fiore, Merut, Lucchi, Flea, a shawled women, and something else, vaguely humanoid that could not be identified. The purpose of this arcane contraption and the nature of the machinery surrounding it were beyond the expertise of anyone present.
Between Lands (4)
Alone in the Dark
The curious, lost souls pondered the device for quite some time. They were hardly able to gather anything from it, other than discovering sunken dials in the rear face of the base part of the thing. After tinkering with it, wretched echoes rang through the manner, warning off the intruders. Veilyn was unsatisfied with this end. She smashed the vials containing the ghostly images. Immediately and with speed beyond vision, all present, except Samworthy Sandlewood, were pulled into the wrecked machine. Like hairs down a drain, with a crack like a whip. Their landing was uncomfortable, they had many injuries and unseen ailments between them. They arrived in the front room of a butcher shop. It was unclean, untidy, and the only exit was a set of basement stairs leading into magical darkness. Lucchi was fighting off intense regret, to the point where she was self-flagellating and begging for repentance. Fiorre was seeing all manner of things, visions that one would usually associate with the dirty weeds: natural psychedelics. Merut was crippled for a short while, and Flea was paralyzed with fear. Veilyn suffered from unseen blights. Mumuk was perfectly fine. His dwarven toughness spared him, and while his comrades fought off their own demons, he explored the unseen dark. Despite only taking a few turns, Mumuk concluded he was lost in a maze. His dwarven intelligence was failing him. He walked around the walls of a ruined living room with splintered furniture around its sides. Mumuk felt around a while longer, testing if he could break the dark, trying to determine what was in the dark, and of course, trying to find a way out. Merut and Fiorre overcame their trials and found themselves, sanely, in the insane butcher's shop. They too descended the basement stairs and disappeared into the dark.
Between Lands (5)
Bloody Harvest
As soon as Fiorre and Merut were down the stairs, they were lost to each other. Fortunately, the absence of Fiorre prompted Lucchi to become slightly closer to her regular self, a diva. Flea carried her into the dark and followed Merut in looking for Mumuk and Fiorre therein. The party moved through multiple passages of the subterranean layer. It seemed the more of them were together, the lighter the corridors; they could just about see ahead of them. After a short, while they found Fiorre in a spiked cage, she was relieved and asked to be freed in a desperate way. After the party obliged, she revealed herself to be a fake. A thorn-crowned young wood witch laughed and disappeared into thin air. They then doubled back to check another passage, the opposite way past the basement stairs. walking that corridor is when Mumuk surprised Veilyn from behind and received a thrashing. They laughed it off and were happy to see that their reunion added to the cellar's luminosity. In the new light, however, a new form was seen. A tall, bent over the figure, covered in rags and talismans. It grabbed Mumuk from behind and vanished. The party was terrified, but couldn't bear to be split up anymore, so they charged into the dark to find the hag. They found her standing over Fiore, with Mumuk suspended over a cauldron as she tinkered with ingredients. Finding this hidden grotto behind an illusion bolstered the party's determination. They interrogated the hag but received nothing but unsettling riddles. Veilyn touched Mumuk and he dropped into the cauldron before being pulled out. He looked to be in shock. The hag wasn't behind the time loop, but she had power within it. She told the party she could send them to the present, but they would all die. The party left Mumuk behind as an anchor for the hags magic and returned to the mortal plane. The long-awaited battle arrived. Refugees and soldiers were massacred between fields of purple flame walls, orange infernos, and towers of giants. Uild Mages, Gaque Flameguard, Giants, Gaunts Royalists, Elindaal Scholars, and Orcs Clansmen all clashed. The outcome of the battle was hidden in the fog of war. The fate of our heroes was hidden under the buried entrenchments they had rested within.
