Story 8/12/2018

The session started off with the group freshly leveled up to level 9. As they pondered their newfound powers and slight increased resistance to damage, they started to examine the Tome of the last highpriest of Pelor. The Tome consisted of a front cover with the symbol of Pelor, and 7 pages (counting the back cover) of seemingly random symbols and hieroglyphs.

Beorn and Lunashe were examining the Tome, when they started to notice that the symbols turned into varied passages about the Following of Pelor. Beorn eventually trailed off and started to examine some other books he had stolen on their journey, while Lunashe continued to examine the Tome.

Eventually, the first page started to mention something called The Gavialis. The group recognized that word from the note that their supposed future selves wrote. To recap what that note said -

The seven demons of the fallen one have mastered the seven dark arts.

The seven heroes will die alone in each of the seven planes without the power,

Gather the seven artifacts of the wizard and speak the seven cursed words.

Only then will the seven eternals become mortal, and the seven mortals become eternal.

The Serevictus, The Tarsius, The Gavialis, The Mayavernix, The Drachma, The Kianarack, The Covotos. Beorn took The Serevictus, and started to write words into one of the books he had. He found that the name
 * Klon, Erevan, Aeowyn, Lunashe, Beorn, Khaelis, Ecrozahr

Ecrozahr, as well as the 7 weird names at the bottom of the note, and depictions of those items would burn away after being written down in smoldering embers. All other words would simply fade away like they did several levels ago.

Eventually, the group wrote the word Ecrozahr on the 1st page of the Tome, and suddenly the world around them melted into a peculiar scene. It was an old man, holding the magic pen, writing at the desk they found in the study room in the temple, however the room they were in wasn't the study. They also found that they seemed to be independent observers, and their own bodies were missing. Erevan seemed to vaguely recognize the look of the man.

They tried to talk to him and touch him, but he would not respond and their hands simply passed through everything in the room. They eventually wrote a question on the 1st page of the Tome, and he responded, although what he was writing in the vision didn't match the response. Additionally, the front cover of the Tome was blank, and did not have the symbol of Pelor on it.

The questions did seem to sync up with what they were seeing though, as the man would giggle when they did silly things, and grunt when they tried to communicate in ways that didn't work.

The man went on to explain that his name was Ecrozahr. He was a powerful wizard, who at one point in his life had mastered the art of changing planes. He said that there are many planes in the world, some are elemental, some are pure chaos, but the planes that interest him the most are the ones that branch off of the current reality.

He said that in Euphera, there is 1 core reality that stretches through time (unlike theories about infinite universes and stuff like that). He said that the branches can form from almost any point, and often times they simply branch for a short period of time and dissipate, but sometimes elements from a branch, or the entire branch can merge back in with the 1 core reality. He said that when he was younger, he thought he could predict the infinite past and infinite future of Euphera, but he kept finding errors and anomalies in this. He realized it was due to the branching, so the infinite future and past were variable. He also explained that he didn't fully understand the mechanics of why some branches merge and some don't, but that there were certain events that seemed unbranchable. Basically, no matter how many times he had tried to change something and merge it back in, it would fail. That event was set in chronological stone. For instance, The Raven Queen marrying the old god of death Nerull, was an unbranchable event. At the same time, he found a man eating soup for supper one day that was unbranchable. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason as to why an event was unbranchable.

When asked about Desmond and the Orange Robe Crew, he hesitated and eventually said he didn't know of them. Beorn asked him about the red woman that helped them against Desmond, and he got up from his desk, looked in a very earthen book (the front cover was branches and leaves), nodded to himself, then went back to the Tome and said not to worry about it, he thinks it's nothing. The group eventually realized that Desmond's time lock spell was a form of branching.

He eventually went on to explain that he had 7 items that helped him in the ritual to change planes, but he lost one of them, which eventually led to the others being lost. The 7 items were:

His glasses “The Serevictus” which allowed him to see other planes

His hat “The Tarsius” which allows his mind to transcend into other planes

His pen “The Gavialis” which is used to send messages to other planes

His urn “The Mayavernix” which is used in the ritual to change planes

His robes “The Drachma” which shields him from other things seeing his planar activities

His spell scroll “The Kianarack” which details the ritual to change planes

His pipe “The Covotos” which binds all objects together, forces them to cooperate in the ritual

After saying this, he produced a wand, pointed it at the pen and it dissipated, and the room melted back to reality inside the Temple of Pelor. The group then figured out they could get back to the vision just by rewriting something in the Tome (so both the Tome and the Pen are required to get back). Ecrozahr then explained that after he lost his hat, he eventually lost the other items, except the pen. He realized he couldn't change the core reality, so he transported his pen to a random location that he didn't know about (and the group then realized it somehow made it to Akorak, the Gollum of this story, where they recovered it). Before transporting the pen, he created this branch, which was allowing them to commune through time.

Ecrozahr said he wanted to show them how he lost his hat, because there was a clue as to where they might be able to find it.

The group wrote the word Ecrozahr on the 2nd page of the Tome, and were transported to a vision on the L'Boontian docks at Miradore. They seemed to be 20-30 years in the past. 8 dock guards were chasing Ecrozahr (who had all 7 magic items with him), and archers were raining down on them from above. He spawned 4 guardian golems, and the group found themselves acting out the role of the golems (but with their powers...). They were able to defeat the dock guards fairly easily with massive AoE attacks from Klon and Lunashe, but as they left, Ecrozahr's hat snagged on a fishing pole and he didn't notice it right away. He said that no matter how many times he tried, he couldn't change the event. It was unbranchable.

After Ecrozahr escaped by boat, they had a few moments of the vision left before it ended. Zandyr Medda was at the docks, offering bounty hunter services to go after the wizard. As he left, he noticed the hat, and snagged it.

The group decided to go after Zandyr before delving deeper into Tome visions. Erevan cased the Medda mansion for a bit, and noticed that it would be fairly easy to pose as worker bees to get inside. Lunashe learned that there was a central trophy case which might house the hat, or it might be in Zandry's private room on the 2nd floor which had a big foyer party room in front of it. Beorn went to go settle his debts with Kaielle, and after slipping coin around (including to a young kid cleaning a bar) managed to get his 300g back, and potentially make an underworld frenemy in Kaielle...

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