Mediums and Messages

Eyes Unclouded - Sessions 28 & 29

Two session reports from our ongoing Studio Ghibli-inspired Cairn game. I let a week get away from me, so I'll try to be brief.

Session 28: Escape from the Mire

With one last schlorp, the last remains of the great spirit Fyrir disintegrated. Noxious, anti-magic ooze began to drain into a trio of holes in the middle of the small circle of pines that had marked her grove. The party decided it was time to get out of here. They were:

And they were accompanied by:

Unfortunately, the boat (or "rigible," as the party call it) was wedged between two pines. September flew out and pushed, astonishing everyone as they managed to shove the boat free. The party set a course due west, circumnavigating the clearing to head for the somewhat nearby ruins of Mal-Aqat.

Experiments with the Ooze

As they sailed, Ismene asked the party what they planned to do about the ecological disaster. Fyrir seemed to be the source of the problem, but the ooze wasn't going anywhere.

The party decided to experiment with said ooze. Sir Percius scooped up a small portion with his shield, and Flame set it ablaze. The ooze burned slowly and emitted acrid fumes. Nanaki took a portion and tossed it into the boiler powering rigible-Ambrose. It combusted, producing a burst of speed and energy, but also damaging their companion's magical vessel form.

A Perilous Voyage

The landscape around the clearing was peppered with giant holes that burrowed down out of sight. The ooze seemed to flow over them without trouble, but the rigible might not. The party set to work collaboratively guiding the vessel through, with September flying ahead and other party members variously steering or leaning their weight to traverse the hazardous terrain.

On a relatively solid atoll, Ambrose tried to make some modifications. He collapsed the dream garden, stowing the mental model of Eirnos he had been conversing with into a voice in his ear. He asked Madrigal, the werebear, how she transformed. Using her advice, he attempted to transform back into a person. It didn't quite work, but he was able to return to his dirigible form, this time with a furry balloon and bear ears.

Not wanting to risk their ship coming undone or sleep out in the open mire, the party sailed westward again. The long voyage began to take its toll as sleep deprivation set in. As dawn began to break, they sighted something tall and luminous by the coast.

Session 29: The City of Mal-Aqat?

Ahead was a large structure made of pearlescent white stone. It had the white, yam-like domes they had come to associate with ruins of the Mal-Aqat people, but unlike other sites, it seemed to be totally intact.

There were two changes to the party:

Leder had been lost in the Woods Inverted for some time and was delighted to see friendly faces. The party disembarked to say hello, then Merlina unwound the Polymorph spell Ambrose had cast. He returned to his usual human form, except his right arm was still the helm of a ship—a side effect from transforming part of his boat form into a human arm during the fight with Fyrir.

Everyone was exhausted, so they decided to get some sleep. Leder volunteered to keep watch with Nanaki, who was feeling relatively energized. They took out the napstone and settled in on a turf slope some hundred yards from the city walls.

Robbed by a Golem

Just two hours into their rest, a huge mossy figure was spotted lumbering toward the camp. As it drew closer, Nanaki recognized it as a Mal-Aqat golem, overgrown and covered in muck. A large lily bloomed on its shoulder. It had clearly spotted them and didn't seem hostile, so Nanaki and Leder decided to let it approach rather than waking the others.

The golem entered their camp carefully and emitted a series of high-pitched beeps. Then it noticed the napstone. It extended its long, ceramic arm to grab it. Nanaki tried to quickly swap it for the silver birdnest from their bag, but they were too slow. Nanaki clung to the stone and they were borne aloft.

Scanning the campsite, the golem detected another treasure: the Eirnos orb. It gently fished it out of Ambrose’s pack, then began its slow march due west toward the city. General chaos broke out: Nanaki dangled from the construct as Leder tossed September into a bag (shielding them from the napstone's radiation) and shook it to wake them. They tried tossing chains, tripping the thing, and otherwise preventing it from walking, but it just shrugged them off.

As soon as the napstone was far enough away, the party members who were awake yelled to rouse the rest. They sprang groggily into action and gave chase, but only Ambrose was able to catch up. The construct was walking toward a seemingly blank passage of stone wall, but there was something off about it—it seemed to shimmer and ripple in the light. The mountebank ran forward and jumped through.

The Celestial Gate

Ambrose emerged onto a plaza of pearlescent white flagstones. Ahead, a huge arch loomed, though it seemed to writhe and twist ever so slightly. Fifteen silver posts emerged from the ground beneath the arch in a triangular formation. Beyond, the sky was filled with twinkling stars, though they too seemed to be made of this white stone as well and were far too close.

The automaton arrived in the plaza next, then the lagging party members. Nanaki began poking at the moss, thinking the overgrowth might have damaged the construct in some way. They found a thin tape inscribed with letters in the Mal-Aqat script connecting the head to the torso. It seemed to be made from the same material as the paving stones nearby.

The construct crossed the plaza and approached a flight of stairs that descended down into darkness below. The party urged Nanaki to tear out the tape and, hesitantly, they did. Instantly, the construct's knees buckled, and it began to crumble down the steps. Ambrose grabbed the Eirnos orb (managing to resist its life-draining effect), while September snagged the napstone. The artificer jumped clear as the automaton's remains tumbled away, making a tremendous amount of noise before disappearing abruptly into the darkness.

The Posts

The party began a thorough search of the plaza, tired as they were. Sir Percius immediately recognized that the floor wasn't stone but a sort of shell-like substance produced by celestial creatures. Despite its unearthly origin, it seemed to have been worked by Mal-Aqat craftspeople.

Flame went back to their point of entry, now a stout, white wooden gate. The flame spirit pushed through, emerging back into the Woods Inverted without trouble, then returned.

The party investigated the arch, finding it covered in the fine silver filaments that made up Alfiann's prototype apparatus. These weren't individual strands, though; they were plaited like tendons. Leder checked: there were no bones or flesh inside.

Coming at last to the posts, they were surprised to see that there were only fourteen now. One had disappeared, leaving only a circular slot in the ground. Each seemed to be made from hammered silver and was adorned with a large sigil and a sequence of arrows. Ambrose, examining closely, noted that each "hammer stroke" took the form of a triangle of 14 dents.

Intrigued, the party tried twisting a post. When they did, another post disappeared, flickering out of existence like a spent bulb. They twisted it back, and another vanished as well. This triggered a whole sequence of experiments (that I won't describe for now, for fear of giving something away in my summary).

After some preliminary observations, they decided to pause, rest, and return with fresh eyes.

GM Notes

I'm jamming these reports out in the time between prepping some new classes. Maybe not my best prose, but hopefully a serviceable account.

In Session 28, I pitched the group on a relatively major alteration to the rules we've been playing with, shifting from Cairn's old-school roll-under approach to a more story-game-y PBtA system. They weren't into it, so we made a few tweaks and continued on. The most significant change is the introduction of a formal experience point system that's a little easier for us to track and keep up with during the session.

I genuinely had no idea where the players would head next, but in the end, I'm glad it was Mal-Aqat. It's a major setting mystery left unraveled, and I'm proud of some of my translational prep here.

In Session 29, we introduced a new player/player character, which always takes some amount of feeling out. I tend to take the approach of just inserting them into the fiction at the first available moment, regardless of how implausible, and leaving it to the players to make nice and incorporate them into the party. The players did a great job folding them in.

The automaton was a random encounter that happened to be the perfect catalyst for getting into the Woods Inverted ruins. I'll admit: I was rooting for them to carry away the treasures (or even Nanaki) even deeper into the complex, but this was good too!

The puzzle, which I will again refrain from describing in any detail for now, features 15 cards with a set of symbols and arrows that correspond to the in-fiction posts. Manipulating these cards has effects on the space the player characters are in. How? Why? These are questions I presume we will investigate over the next few sessions, unless the party decides the whole situation is too dangerous and too potentially unrewarding to continue.

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