GM: Sam Tillis
Players: Adrienne Mueller, Dylan Arena, James Lawton, Sean Nittner, Sarah Terman, Matthew Fisher
System: Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition
Content warning: body horror and graphic violence masked (like this)
Australia. An impossible place; a liminal place; a vast, wasted borderland between that which is real and that which is Dream. Maybe it is the distance separating the world you know from the Mystic Here that makes blood-spilling so easy, not just for the typical wielders of knife and gun but increasingly for the rest of you, like a mind-virus spreading from host to host. For this much is true: For however unreal this place is, as real as ever is the basic fragility of the human body. A cut, a dram, a bullet of lead—so many vulnerabilities you have found. But the sword cuts both ways, and now Colby Slater lies broken before you beneath the indifferent southern stars.
What’s wrong with dream here? Should we visit Vern Slatery in Dingo Falls? What to do with Colby? These were questions we all asked ourselves under the southern stars.
Iris tended to Colby’s leg. With his ability to see inside the wound she was able to set it properly, splinted by shafts we took form pick axes.
Catherine, who couldn’t just watch and needed to feel useful, began picking up all the supplies that were scattered form Wycroft’s truck flipping over. In addition to the common rations and supplies, there were a lot of machine parts
Winnie found the body of Shula Wycroft, the only Wycroft daughter who might still be alive, but alas, she was dead as well, her body mangled by the crash. Winnie move her to be a state of more dignified repose.
Catherine, once she noticed Winnie had returned inquired about Mortimer “Did you find him? What happened? What did you learn? Why didn’t you bring him back? Did you learn where he was going?” Here questions weren’t charitable or patient or kind. All of those virtues were on pause as she fretted about Colby. Winnie answers did not satisfy her, and disappointment was visible on her face.
As Iris worked she noticed her plant, that was now always at her side, seemed to shy away from Colby, it did not want his thoughts. If it could hiss, it would have.
What to do now?
We discussed the options.
- Drive back to Cuncudgerie, cover up the murder, take the train to Port Headland, evade the inevitable investigation there, charter a plane (they might have old bombers from the great war that could take us all) to Perth, and seek medical attention for Colby, or
- Walk into the outback with the hope of finding aboriginal people who we hoped would take us in and have a healer and would tend to Colby’s wounds.
Thought everyone wanted to move forward and had hopes of success, Catherine was not going to make this decision based on hope. She was halfway into rifling through Iris’ medical kit when Iris cleared her throat and held out the opium and asked “are you looking for this?”
“Yes. If we’re going to do this, I’m not going to do it blind. I’m going to look and see what will happen and to do that I need to be at rest and calm and slow my heart rate, and at the moment, I’m anything but those things.” We stared at each other for a moment, and then remembered Amos had a much less dangerous method, and asked him to cast Earth Serenity to aid her.
Catherine put her hand on Colby’s thigh, just above the break, close her eyes for a moment and the opened them with a far off gaze and saw…nothing. It didn’t work. The gardens were close to her. So she pushed it. Dingos of Tindalos be damned. And this time it worked. She saw trucks driving into the hot sun, cresting a hill, and seeing smoke on the horizon. She saw the people that could help Colby, but in her vision did not see if they would help him.
The experience was not wholly unlike how the Great Race had once used dream…as a tool…as a weapon. And she saw that in this moment, the real world was mutable in the same way dream was mutable. Conceive of something strongly enough in you mind and it would be reality. She saw Colby’s leg mending, or did she see the damage being undone. Colby felt the pain of his bones sticthing themselves back together (or perhaps unbreaking) and as Catherine’s eyes flickered back into focus, the legs of Gertie, Janice, and Shula Wycrort all snapped at once. A cost was paid. [Hard success on precognition and on dreaming after pushing both!] “We can go east and find the people who can help Colby, but I do not know what they will ask of us.”
Winnie searched through the Wycroft belongings and found among them the same bat-teeth cudgels as well as keys to their home.
Nora berated Catherine for playing with forces she does not understand. “These people have spent lives, generations, learning from the land and finding harmony with dreams and you just come here without knowing anything and try to use it to suit your own needs. These things have repercussions. You don’t know what you’re doing.”
Catherine, still under the spell of serenity responded very calmly “You’re right. I don’t. Bring on the repercussions. I will shatter a thousand dreams and a thousand futures if need be to help Colby.” [A bit of retractive dramaturgy on my part as I write this. In the moment I just said “I made a choice and I would do it again” but his sounds pretty cool, no?]
Return to Cuncudgerie
We returned in the middle of the night to clean up the blood left behind, restock our supplies (we didn’t trust any of the rations that the Wycroft’s packed for us not to be contaminated), as well as to investigate their home. Under a bed Winnie found a book bound in red leather titled Wonderous Intelligences and a jar of black grease paint.
Winnie was searching for something else though, Catherine could tell. “Winnie, I think you’re looking for some assurance that these people are as horrible as we’ve said they are. I know you want to believe that we’re good and they are evil and that our actions make that hard to believe. I understand why you feel that way, because I once felt that way too. All I can say is that when you are exposed to the horrors, they will be terrible to see. We’ve seen people beaten to death on a metal alter, we’ve seen people sacrificed to dark gods, and horrors that are alien to our world. When you do see these horrors, I beg you not to look to closely as the experience can be terrible to behold.” Winnie took it in, but Catherine could not tell how much the youngest Morseley believed her.
Dingo Falls
We left the Wycroft home under the light morning of the pale moon, before the sun had come up. None of us had slept. Our sights set for Dingo Falls.
Colby, with help from Iris, navigated by the stars to get us there. Somehow the moon felt larger here, handing deep in the sky.
We arrived at dawn to see great red rocks jut from the shallow ridge like a wave frozen in stone. Below was a pool with three caves above it. Once upon a time water might have flowed from them, but at present we saw neither dingos nor falls.
A mile off a small cluster of ramshackle huts were the only signs of inhabitation. As far as towns go, it looked like Dingo Falls was likely just Vern Slatery and his neighbors (turns out that was still an overestimtion).
As we arrived Nora felt like this place was both familiar and ever changing. She was sworn she had seen a ridge just like this one, but not on this place. Maybe it was her memory that couldn’t be trusted after all that time with cultists, or maybe the place it self was shifting. She tried to center herself and and attune with the land.
We saw three shacks, one out-house, and a long abandoned mining operation. We drove up in one truck with Catherine, Colby, Winnie and Nora, leaving Amos, Iris, Nails, Jimmy, and Li-Wen behind with rifles at the ready.
When we pulled up the meanest old man we’d seen in a while came out of his hut, face twitching, holding his bolt-action rifle pointing at our truck. “What are you doing on my property?”
Catherine rolled down the window of the truck and was as disarming as possible. “We’re traveling east hunting a man who I think a mutual foe. His name is Huston, but you might now him as Carver. We think he’s doing terrible things and we want to stop him.”
Slaterly didn’t trust us, didn’t like being outnumbered, but eventually he warmed some. Not quite cordial, but conversational. Colby saw through the walls inside the hut and perceived Vern’s two sons, maybe 10 and 12, both holding rifles of their own.
We spent some time getting to know each other until Vern gave us an offer “I have ghost problem. There are strange howls and sounds that come from the lake. People that come her disappear. It’s been haunting me since I returned from that cursed dig site. Get rid of that ghost and I’ll tell you where to find it. But don’t try to appease it or talk to it. Just destroy it, and I’ll give you what you want.”
“Anyone lost there?” Nora inquired. By this time everyone the rest of our party had pulled up to join the conversation.
“Many have lost.” Vern gave us more hard looks.
Vern offered a hut for us to use. It belonged to his friend Jeremy Grogan who went with him to find Huston, but died after he came back. It had a single bed that we gave to Colby and the rest of us made due with the camping supplies we packed.
When we asked Vern to tell us more, he was pretty tight lipped. Some folks had lived here before, but they moved on. He wasn’t telling us more until we dealt with his ghost.
Winnie, who had a teddy bear she had taken from the Wycroft home offered to to the youngest son Jacko. “I’ve got this toy that doesn’t have a home. Would you like it?”
Jack accepted it and pulled out the glass eye, polish it, and then put it in his pocket. “Thanks.” Then he pulled out the second and went back to breathing in and out of an old harmonica making noises that couldn’t be called music but weren’t any more awful than you’d expect.
Catherine asked Nora about ghosts…and how ew should proceed. Nora wasn’t sure but had theories, mostly around settling whatever matter they left unfinished.
Nora and Amos discussed what they new and as far as we could tell, while ghosts belonged in the field of the Occult, they may be one of the few supernatural things we’ve encountered that were not connected to the Mythos.
We rested for a few hours and luckily none of us dreamed.
In the late day, nearly dark already, we drove out out to the lake. It was not particularly large, but against the spartan backdrop and the blood red setting son, it was idyllic.
Ghost of Friend’s Lost
Winnie inspected the campsites and saw signs that painted a picture of someone starting a fire, stepping into the fire and immolating themselves, and then climbing up to one of the caves and going inside.
Before we stated in Amos wanted to practice the Aboriginal song he learned, and Nora, Iris, and Winnie were able to pick it up. The lack of any kind of timing structure made it difficult for Catherine to learn.
We prepared a few buckets of sand (to put out a potential future fire) and climbed up into the cave. Colby could tell in advance that it dead ended and that there were four bodies at the end of the cave. We proceeded cautiously, found the four bodies, and the ghost above them, making harmonica sounds that were more musical (an Australian folk song Nora recognized), but certainly from the same harmonica little Jacko had been blowing into.
Notably the ghost stood above a single body that was very badly burned (nothing but bones left) while the others appeared have only died from fire (as if that is any better). The very badly burned figure was also lacking boots!
The ghost could not speak (only made harmonica sounds) but did nod and we were able to read it’s lips somewhat. After asking it several questions we learned he was a friend of Vern’s. When Vern came back from the dig, he shot this man (thought he was dead) and then burned him in this cave (which did kill him). The ghost wanted vengeance for his murder.
Moral Encumbrance
Do we try to destroy this ghost to get the information? Do we appease the ghost and kill Vern leaving his children as orphans and without the information we need?
These were hard decisions to make and we decided to return to “town” to learn more.
“Is it done?” Vern asked the moment we returned, As we tried to explain he clarified that “It’s a yes or no question.”
Nora tried to explain “I know you said to kill the ghost, but it’s not that simple. Ghosts have a reason for haunting. Can you think of any reason he is still here?”
“Strange things happen out here.” Vern lied without much skill.
“I’ve heard that burning a ghosts remains can work.” Nora offered, hoping to draw more out of him.
Vern’s face stopped twitching for a moment (the first time this had happened) and then it started in again. “Sounds good. Try burning him!”
Are you my momma now?
Meanwhile, Winnie asked Jacko if he wanted to take a bath. It has probably been a long time since he had one. Behind the outhouse there was a clawfoot bathtub and behind the tub, a pair of old boots. As Winnie was washing Jacko she asked if he knew about the boots and who owned them.
“He’s gone.” Jacko said without much thought. When asked more he said they belonged to Bill. “Bill was nice. He’d spend time with us and momma when daddy would leave. Me, Frank (his older brother), mom, and Bill.”
Winnie asked more.
“Bill went to Dingo Falls and didn’t come back.” He held up the harmonica “Daddy said this was a present from Bill.”
Winnie asked more.
“Daddy and Bill got in a big fight. Daddy yelled that Bill was gonna kill momma. The went to the falls together but only daddy came back.”
Winnie asked more. About Jacko’s mother.
“Momma was alive one day. Then one day she wasn’t.” He pressed his face under the water to hide his tears. When he came out he asked Winnie “Are you my momma now?”
“For now, maybe I am.”
Seeing the Unseen
Colby had not been able to see (or hear) the ghost at all. Catherine understood this was because whatever it was she was seeing wasn’t registering to the Yith technology as real, but much as you can find the edges of something invisible by covering it in flour, she imagined he might be able to find the edges of the unreal but flooding it with reality and detecting the absence. She tried adjusting his visor and it worked (he was able to see the outline of the sword of dreaming, which he also could not detect before) but the process was overwhelming as the human mind was not made to accept that much sensory data [resulting in sanity loss].
Is that a stick of dynamite in your pocket?
Iris, not engaged in the other activities was free to noticed that Frank, the older sone was rifling through the things in the back of their truck and she caught him shoving sticks of dynamite down his pants. “Put that back.” She said as sternly as possible.
“Why, are you going to shoot me?” Frank asked as though it was a reasonable questoin.
“What are you planning to do with it?” Iris changed tact.
“Blow stuff up.” That was as far as his plans went. Frank pointed at a tree “Maybe that tree.”
Iris made a counter offer, but Frank wasn’t having it. He tore off around the truck to try and evade her, and ran right into his father.
“Who let’s dynamite sit around where this idiot boy can find it?” Vern shook his son like a pinata, sharking free stick after stick of dynamite. He was cursing us all out until Winnie exited the bath room looking like a nymph, dressed in a clean shirt with her hair freshly washed.
Vern faltered, words caught in his mouth, muttered something about the spitting image of his wife, and then told us it was time for us to leave. His temper reached a level where both of his sons knew it was time to not be present. The ran back into the house.
Pressing the matter
We were about to leave, but we realized that the stick in the ground on the other side of the huts was where Jacko’s mom was buried. Colby wanted to go investigate but to get a good look he’d have to be closer. So Catherine opted to buy him some time by pressing further.
Before the split up Colby gave instructions to Nails. “If anything happens, kill Vern, then Frank, then Jacko, in that order.” Apparently Nails Nelson has a line of what he will and won’t do, because that seemed to cross it. But he nodded just the same.
Catherine and Winnie approached Vern “Vern, I know we all want Bill gone.”
“Bill? Bill Buckley. That rat fucker!” He waved his gun at Winnie.
“What did Bill do Vern? What did you do?”
Vern told three stories on top of each other, all contradictory, and yet all telling the same story. When he returned he killed Bill (who he thought was having an affair with his wife) and then killed his wife. At that same moment Colby was standing over her grave and saw the bullet wound in the back of her head.
Catherine put her hands up and told Vern we’d be leaving. She put her arm around Winnie and walked her away, but nodded to Nails to give the signal.
Nails took a shot…and missed (he was still feeling conflicted).
Vern jumped behind a rock and was about to fire, but Iris and Amos, who also had rifles ready, fired and Amos killed him in one shot. Catherine and Winnie dove to the ground and Catherine told her that Nails has probably just saved their lives. Vern was about to kill them.
Delivering bad news
Nora and Winnie went inside the house to tell Jacko and Frank what happened. They heard the gunshots but nothing else “You father tired to kill us, and we shot back. He’s dead and we are very sorry.”
Frank’s expression we blank. Jacko cried and asked Winnie again “Are you my momma now?”
The kids agreed to come with us, but for the time being nothing we said was really helping cope with the impact of losing their last relative (besides each other).
We searched the house, found pictures of the three men (Vern, Bill, and Jeremy). In the trucks we also found a map…with a route draw to the dig!
Before we left, Amos told frank about famous boxers and asked if he wanted to learn to fight. Frank took a few swings and Amos showed him a few moves, which helped bring him back to the moment and not get too lost in the trauma. It seemed unlikely (but not impossible) that he’d steal more dynamite and run off in the night.
A long road
We drove for a day to Mount MacPherson and camped. In the days that followed the vast red landscape of Australia continued…seemingly endlessly.
Winnie thanked Nails for protecting her, but he demurred that he had missed. Catherine later encouraged him to play the hero. He had defended her from Vern, or at least she needed to believe that if she was to have any faith that we weren’t terrible people after all. “You don’t want her to be a afraid of you.”
As best she could on the bumpy road, Winne read Wonderous Intelligence, a book that expounded on the sexual prowess of the author and his experience with the Yith. His mind had been transported to see vitas beyond time, and when it returned, he retained some knowledge of the Yith. We wondered if this is what happens to all the the “Georges.”
Iris fed the plant sadness, which was in plenty of supply from Frank and Jacko.
Nora brought over a bottle to Nails and told him “Well, Vern may have been a piece of shit, but at least he had some mediocre whiskey.
More Dangers of the Outback
At night, when Iris and Catherine were on watch, Iris spotted a brown snake climbing up Catherine’s leg! Catarrhine tried (unsuccessfully to disentangle herself) while Iris woke up Amos to get his help.
Amos tried to grapple the snake but it slipped through his grip and lunged at him. Though the snake darted almost faster than the eye could see, Amos’ boxer instincts kicked in and he narrowly dodged it. It’s body partially extended, Iris slashed at it with her knife and then Catherine wrestled it off her and threw it into the fire.
In the morning Catherine, all on her own, ate some of that snake. It wanted to eat her, she was going to eat it right back. It was gross but validating.
Off Roading
Though the route we had took us directly to the dig site it didn’t follow the Canning Route, which is where Catherine’s vision showed us finding the people who could help. We decided to head out on our own, South East, with the hope that we would spot the wells on our way. We traveled for a day, longer than expected, and found nothing but more same dry scrubland. We all had the feeling that the world, as we understood it, was not the world we were in. Had we left the path or did the path move away from us. Our compasses turned in our hands, pointing to a new north we did not know.
After another day of travel though, we found a path, and it led us to well #13. It was full of both snakes and water, but we knew our supplies were limited so we pumped water out, boiled it to purify it, and used it to refill our canteens.
We drove past many well with Colby navigating the way. His thoughts drifted to Catherine’s exquisite mind that could somehow see the patterns that would lead to a specific future where we found the aboriginal people. He felt a lure pulling him, as though he was the compass needle that was personally being repulsed. He told Catherine to drive off the path we were on. She knew he could see things she could not and she trusted him, and drove once again into the unknown. After a time the path was beneath us again, as if we had been driving in a waking dream and it manifested below us.
Amos noticed this and warned us all of the dangers of slipping into dream here. All of us who knew how to dream would have to be on guard. Colby, Catherine, Amos, and Iris all stayed up that night, keeping each other distracted so we did not fall asleep. It was hard, but we stayed alert. Colby felt the moon, even closer, watching us.
In the morning we still did not see smoke and we all wondered how long we could keep this up. If we did not find people that could help, dreams would surely consume us sooner or later. As we drove Amos nodded off on accident and dreamed of the Grey Dragon Island. He shouldn’t have let Brady go in alone. He saw Brady and and Nodens as one. The he entered dream and where he found steps and guardians before, how it was a giant void with ten thousand dreams all vying for his attention, trying to draw him in.
His dream was Rebus, the Androgyne. A writhing mass of bodies pressed into each other and calling him to join. He tried to resist, to pull away, to wake himself. He imagined a bucked of water splashing over him and he woke to a sudden thunderstorm!
Catherine saw the rain come from nowhere and the hard packed earth turned to slipper mud beneath her truck’s wheels. She remembered her father teach her to drive when she was still too small for her feet to touch the petals. She sat in his lap, holding the wheel and telling him when to break and accelerate. He told her when the road was unsafe to downshift and head for the edges that were the most stable. She nearly lunged for the gear shift with both hands (just as she had when she was a girl and her father could hold the wheel) but caught herself. She down shifted and headed to the edge of the road where she could get better traction.
And as fast as it came, the thunderstorm was gone, the clouds disappeared, and the rain stopped. The mundane world once again as we expected it.
Lead by Song
Amos suggested that we sing the song he learned. This time we all learned it, and and as we sung we found that if the trucks were slowed to moving at walking speed the cadence of the song matched the cadence of the land. The high points as we crested hills, and each change in the song matching changes in our vistas. We sang and we drove and we sang and we drove and as the sun was setting we saw smoke in the distance.
When were were close enough to see the people, performing a controlled burn, we got out of the trucks and walked the rest of the way, Colby and Catherine hanging back.
As Amos approached, still singing, an ancient figure broke away from the group and asked how he learned the song. Before Amos could tell them much they interrupted “You are not welcome here.”
Amos pleaded “We need your help.”
The ancient figure countered “What could I offer you that you could not achieve simply by leaving?”
“We must go north to stop a great evil, and we need your help to do that.”
“That place is taboo. We do not go there.”
Amos showed them the clubs with bat teeth and poison and said “We have to stop it. I am a dreamer—”
“I know.” The ancient figure cut him off again.
“It is not safe for me here.” Amos implored.
“Then leave.” The ancient figure had reasons for their apathy to our plight that we could guess but did not know.
Another member of the group broke off to join the conversation. He was also elderly, in fact, almost all of them were elderly, the youngest in the group were middled aged. He seemed more compassionate. He gestured to the north and asked “What do you know of this man and his intentions? We call him the Dream Raider. He seeks to shape others dreams.” Later we would learn that his name was Toba.
Amos, encouraged by this discovery responded “We didn’t know he had developed such powers, but we need to stop him.”
The original, still untrusting figure (who we later learned was Tjunkiya) asked “What do you ask of us?”
“One of our party is injured.”
“And you don’t have healers?”
“We do, but not here.”
For a moment the original refrain of “then leave” seemed to be on Tjunkiya’s lips, but Toba’s presence softened their reply “You’re companion is injured in more more ways than one. His leg is the least of his injuries.”
Amos nodded, understanding how abhorrent the Yith technology was to these people. “We’d like help protecting ourselves against dream.”
Iris joined the conversation and added “Also we have children, who need a home, and cannot come with us.”
Tjunkiya took in Jacko and Frank “The are Mardu. How did you meet them?”
“They are orphans.” Amos was in the process of tell Tjunkiya about their parents, but the elder confirmed they knew what the word meant. (Was that humor?)
“Your people have taken our children, torn apart our land, and stolen so much from us. You ask many things, with so much taken from us…” Tjunkiya paused and looked over the boys “We’ll take the children. Your friend is taboo.”
“Because of what the Yith did to him?” Amos asked but the name Yith seemed to have no meaning.
“Because he has been changed by the ancients.”
“We know that we’re done harm to you, but this ancient evil is an enemy to all of humanity. Please help us to stop it.”
“We will trust you because you fight this evil and because you would not survive another night alone, and we don’t want your blood on our hands.”
After this we were allowed to join the Mardu, and the children were welcomed as family. Jacko and Frank didn’t really know what any of this met, and for now Winnie stayed with them to try and ease the transition.
When Colby and Catherine came closer Tjunkiya asked “What has been done to you?”
“In a bout of madness I ruined my eyes. I wanted desperately to see clearly.”
“You’re not the first to seek such vision. We cannot help you with this, but we can perhaps help you heal this wound.”
“Will that leave me without sight?”
“Without sight, yes, but not without vision.”
“If it would give me strength to fight our foes, I will do as you instruct” Colby consented.
“It is your understanding of strength that holds you back. Strength is the land. Strength is in your ancestors. Strength is within you.”
Colby nodded “If you think this will help, I will trust you.” Catherine squeezed his hand encouragingly.
Singing ourselves whole
We were allowed into their camp and we moved with them. As time passed we lost our sense of it. A week passed but it was both longer and took place in a flash of glowing hills. Tjunkiya tended to the matter of dreams while Toba focused on material matters.
Amos asked if the knew of Bundari. “The Walker (their name for him) is an idiot. He wanders into places he shouldn’t. He’s been doing this for one lifetime, we’ve been doing it for generations.”
When we discussed Huston they said “The land dreams us and we dream the land in return. The Dream Raider does not care about the balance. He walks in the dark. You must walk in the light. Sing truths and know yourself. Sing lies and lose everything.”
Nora asked Toba about their history and if he know of an ancient war. Toba told her that the song is tied to the land they are on. He does not know of a war, but the place they call taboo is where a dead god is buried deep.
Nora asked about the Eye of Light and Darkness and Toba confirmed they felt it when the seal was broken. Should the world become uninhabitable they have a place they can hide, that we cannot. Nora told him “We have a part of the Eye, but we need the whole, we need it to be whole.”
“You will find what you see in the Taboo, but at great cost.”
Nora asked if they had encountered something like the Yellow Sign (without actually naming it or describing it in a way that would transmit the knowledge…her brain itched as the idea fought to escape). “We’ve never encountered this, and if one of us did, they would sacrifice themselves so that they did not hurt the rest, wouldn’t you?”
Winnie read Treat with the Sky Devil of Tyfund and learned of a creature from the stars, a route to the Biyaki, space faring creatures. She tried to learn a spell to contact them but her mind was not ready for it. More would have to change within her before she could master it.
She also skimmed the book of R’lyeh (in classical Chinese with commentary also in classical Chinese, Li-Wen was able to help). She learned of a sinking continent of Mu as recounted by the spawn of Cthulhu. The book included spells on how to contact them, a partially accurate sketch of R’lyeh, and other spells including: The Unwavering Gaze, Come children of Sea, Contact Father Dagon, Contact Mother Hydra.
Colby was instructed on how to sing himself whole. He had to dream himself without the apparatus. Catherine wanted to help and offered to give up the Yithian device to prove her dedication to seeing him healed. Tjunkiya did not require that but told her she should leave it in the Taboo, and allowed her to help.
The dreaming faltered and would have failed. Colby would have been drawn into a dream of the moon and Catherine told him to take another path, to dream a different dream. Her device was signaling to her from Future Catherine. Who seemed closer than she imagined. Future Catherine was haggard and worn. Colby felt pulled towards dissolution, to give up, but instead he chose the dream of the sun instead.
Colby woke with no eyes. He was blind. But he could see some things. A plant. A dagger. A sword. And dozens of people who were watching and attending, being in each other’s presence, passing through one another. “I’m sorry Catherine?”
“What could you possibly be sorry for?” She held his hand.
“I wanted to be useful.”
“I never wanted you to be useful, I just wanted you to be you… How does it feel?”
“Devastating.”
Catherine knew that in a moment of loss, people must be allowed to feel their pain. The cannot be told ignore it or pretend it isn’t there. She pressed her hand on his chest and asked “How does this feel?”
“Like the hand that will save me from drowning.”
She pinched his chest where he picked her aortal artery “Then I’ll just be returning the favor.”
When the journey ended Tjunkiya told us “I hope you find what you seek” and it was clear that meant something different to all of us.
We had started the walk at well #13 with our truck a few minutes away and we ended at well #30 with our trucks a few minutes away. Nora pulled out a pair of aviators and gave them Colby. A much less invasive apparatus. [Colby’s major wound healed]
Our last night before the Blue Temple
We drove north and it was very bumpy ride. 150 miles over rough terrain. We made it but the trucks all seemed ready to fall apart. On the drive Colby saw phantasms in the sky, a giant serpent writhing. It seemed somehow to be the opposite of the Maw he entered. The Maw sought to pervert and consume all. This serpent was just where it was supposed to be.
During camp Amos asked Colby how he felt.
“Like a burden.”
Others tried to reassure him “I think you are seeing dream. Inside that temple you might see better than any of us.”
“That would be good.”
Amos suggested that we carry parts of the dream plant he’d be able to detect us, but Iris realized that if we ate it’s pods he’d might be able to our entirety.
Iris gave her brother a pod born from love. It tasted like the memory of being held by his mother, the first crush, knowing you’ll never be loved, being loved to much, and the loss of a loved one all at once. All of it part of Amos now. Scintillating.
Iris at a pod of fear. She had the Nightmare of Neptune. Of drowning on pond water. A place she could retreat into or manifest for others.
Nora also ate a pod of fear. Winter. She remembered the boat she took to Grey Dragon Island, but in this memory the voyage was filled with ice storms and a chill that she could not get out of her bones. A deep cold.
Catherine, meanwhile, was setting up a tent some ways apart from the rest of the camp. Jimmy came to check on her to make sure she as okay. “Jimmy, you’ve been with us for so long and seen so much I know you never wanted. I think this may just be the end for us. If we’re lucky, we make it out and we can go back to our lives and put this all behind us. If we’re not…there may not be a tomorrow for any of us.” Catherine faltered for a moment, embarrassed by what she was about to say, and then just said it “And if this is my last night, I’m going to spend it alone with my man.” Ahhhhh. Jimmy understood now.
Catherine returned to the camp and asked Iris if she could borrow the plant for the night. Iris very reluctantly (VERY reluctantly) agreed. Catherine placed it just outside her tent.
Finally she took Colby’s hands and told him “Tonight I want you to see me with your hands and with your body.” [Yes, I said those words out load in a game. Yes, they were as corny as you can get. Fight me.]
“Yes” Colby accented and allowed Catherine to lead him to their tent.
Catherine messed up the normal sleep pairings, which meant Li-Wen shared a tent with Iris and Jimmy shared a tent with Amos. Inside our driver shared some thoughts of his own “Catherine and I were talking about the end of the world…maybe happening, hopefully not. We might go back to our lives, we might not. Do you want to have sex?”
Amos kissed him and we faded to black.
Temptation of the Yellow Sign
That night on watch Winnie asked Amos what he was hiding from her.
Amos didn’t want to answer but finally decided that if he was going to unburden himself, he’d give Nora the benefit as well. “Let’s wake Nora for this.”
“Nora knows as well?” Winne felt very left out.
Nora was on the edge of a nightmare of winter when Winnie woke her. Outside Amos explained “Winnie is desperate to know.”
Nora shook her head “Winne has the right not to know.”
Winnie spoke up “I want to know.”
Nora turned to her and said will all her conviction “It will change your life forever.”
Eventually Amos and Nora convinced Winnie to start by learning the spell to create the Eye of Light and Darkness. They had temporarily abated her curiosity.
In the morning Catherine and Colby both ate pods from the plant that had grown over night (fed by love). It tasted like the moment that just ended.
Catherine’s dreamscape was the Blue Temple. Because of course it was.
Colby’s dream was the Yellowing. The aging and continuation and eduring of their love. Growing old together.
Winnie also ate a pod of love, and had the dream of Melanosis The Darkening. There is a nightmare of darkening that every person in the world is broken, that the chaos has already won. We’ve see people do terrible things, but they also have love for each other, for the world, and for Winnie herself.
Behold
We broke camp and drove to the giant monument, then walked the last few minutes.
We saw the giant monument, the script carved into it, an abandoned camp, and a truck that looked as it had been crushed by a giant foot flattening it to the ground.
Thoughts for next game
Much as she wants to be done with the Yith, Catherine must make a Mark 4.0 device to maintain the continuity so that her future self can use it communicate.
Remember the scuba gear (we might need to dive).
Let’s go punch a sorcerer in the dream face.
Such a good game as always!
