Into the Gray

Session Summary

Star and Wash disappear in a beam of light, which Hestor recognizes as a calling from the gods. We meet Hestor and he examines the tentacle I collected. Arachne shows Hestor her orb, which siphons energy from its surroundings, and he is taken aback by its power. We discuss our strange visions of sentient animals, and Hestor examines the multiplanar creature's corpse, expressing his desire to take it back to his own plane. We learn that the creatures we encounter are called Planetars, and Elzira writes a letter to his parents for information. Arachne shows Hestor her religious pieces, and he mentions he might be able to help her locate the rest of them in a few months. However, she mostly just needs to use Detect Magic and continue looking. Hestor and his friends must heal before they are strong enough to return.

Log

Still in the New Dawn Warehouse

Star and Wash disappear in a beam of light.

“What purpose do the gods whisk you away for?” Hestor asks.

“They don’t tell us.” Elzira tells him.

“You don’t remember? Something must happen.” 

“Are these other guys your friends?” I ask Hestor. 

He is familiar with one of them, not close, but familiar. Her name is Keri. 

I ask about his familiarity with the Planes and explain that we encountered a creature that existed both in the Material and Ethereal planes.

He tells me it is very unusual for a creature native to this plane to exist in multiple planes. He wants to see the creature. I pass off the tentacle and also explain the body is upstairs.

He’s muttering and his eyes sparkle a little bit as he examines it. 

“Whatever that was, it is not natural to this plane.” He pauses. “I wish to see the rest of the body.”

We realize he can’t leave the room because he’s so large. We decide to use our teleportation device to send the group up above. 

Arachne decides to show her orb to Hestor and explains she thinks they were siphoning their energy to charge these. 

Hestor reaches out to investigate. “I could not begin to guess what it uses the magic for, but it seems to leech magic from its surroundings. What an odd little device. It looks like it will slowly build up energy if it’s not being used.”

“It does appear to keep us mortals from permanent death,” Arachne muses.

“I cannot imagine such little power would keep you from death…” 

“Oh yeah we used mine to fire a magic weapon.” 

“You used what would be enough magic to stop death and fired it as a weapon?” Hestor is clearly completely taken aback.

“Well… I didn’t, but I was near death and it saved my life so in the end… same thing?”

“Maybe don’t be too reckless with that.” 

He slowly lowers it back to Arachne. “I would love to observe that more once I’ve recovered my strength. But I don’t think I can determine much more about it.” 

He states it’s similar to the other abominations. 

Arachne describes the visions of animals. This is curious for Hestor. 

As I’m coming back down, I hear Hestor wonder why we had those visions. 

“What else do you recall?”

Arachne says that it was clear the animals suddenly gained more sentience.

I muse we might have been time traveling. 

Hestor says not impossible, but not very likely. He asks if we had other visions. 

I also mention there is a sentient safe as I note that the teleportation device is ready to investigate the corpse. 

This is bizarre to Hestor and he has a lot of questions. Arachne tells the full story. 

Hestor’s eyes are darting around and he scratches his forehead. “A safe that… that the uh, wall it was connected to was feeding it magic?”

We then decide to finally get back to the corpse using the teleportation device.

Hestor is very squeezed into the hallway. He crawls over to the creature. He spends a moment observing the creature. 

He can tell it’s multiplanar but not much else. He wants to take it back to his own home plane. It’ll only take 5-10 years for him to recharge.  

We decide to get him and the creature downstairs until the other creatures awaken.

They are called Planetars. Elzira really doesn’t have any ideas. He immediately decides to write a letter to his parents for information. #letters

We low key discuss going back to town now that we have a way to return easily. 

Arachne shows her religious pieces to see if Hestor recognizes it. 

“Why are you collecting these?”

“Cause she asked me to.” 

“She being…” 

“Noctana. You know her?”

“Interesting.” There’s a pause. “That’s fascinating. I have not seen that since they were whole. I could not tell you where the pieces lay to this day, especially if you’re not already familiar, they’ve been lost to time if you’re looking for them.”

He says if she still is looking in a few months, he might be able to help at that point. He asks if she can cast Detect Magic. 

“Usually but I’m out of juice today.”

Elzira enters the chat.

Basically, Arachne just needs to use Detect Magic to continue finding them. 

We transport everyone back down to the big room. He wants to know if we can open these panels to get into the containers they were stored in. 

Arachne and I try to do so. Thanks to Guidance, Arachne manages to open the panel.

We click the Kill Switch button after much debate.

The magic field that was blocking it off goes down. Unfortunately some of the liquid drains out but it’s clear it starts draining out the middle mostly. 

“Excellent!” Hestor carries it in and leaves it there. “Can you make it go back?”

Arachne pushes the large button underneath it and it seems to reinstate the power. It refills the chamber with the fluid after the field goes back up. 

Hestor awkwardly says, “Uh, this might seem silly, but would you be able to mark this container so we remember which one we put it in?”

I try to mark it with charcoal. At Arachne’s request, I manage to draw a decent picture painting of the monster we killed to mark the cylinder. 

It is 8:15am Saturday. 

We start bidding farewells and preparing to leave. 

I explain that Arachne can communicate long distance for short messages.

Arachne spaces out a second. “Yo… do any of you guys know how to travel underground? Like a mole?”

I keep asking why.

“I don’t know… it’s been suggested that that’s a place we should go eventually.”

She keeps saying 5 miles minimum under the earth. #clues

8:30am Saturday we discuss heading out and that we want to dig.

• Return with digging supplies to Perfrind