Content Note: Sex, Possession, Eye injuries; Pushing the R-Rating
Before her were the secrets to unlock the Universe.: the scrawled notes of a dead mage called Maythe. In an ornate hand with woodcut-like illuminations. The mage had known only a few spells, to bend others' will and to project his voice... It mattered little. With it she could finally master the Art of fixing a spell in her mind, and the releasing it. Here, on this island, there were plenty of spells to be found. And that fool Jonas had just given it to her. Pretty soon, he would be wrapped around her fingers
The first time they had made love, she had done it to distract him from her attempt to steal this very book. He must've been a sad and lonely man back home to be so easily distracted. But then... Ever since she'd been arrested, she had found men were easily controlled by a woman who knew how to play the frightened ingenue or the eager tavern girl in the right measures at the right time.
One late-night night tussle, and Jonas practically threw his knowledge at her. He was too shy to say what he hoped the terms of her apprenticeship would be. Which is why it had to be her to sneak him away to the entrance to the ruin yesterday evening as they waited for the Great Horror to fly away. She could get everything she needed to master magic well enough from him. In fact, she now knew she could control him because Jonas...
... Well Jonas had a kink. While he had her pinned against that old stone wall, her clothes bunched around her waist he'd reached out to the cascade of slime that curtained the door and smeared it on her. He slid his hand over her in a nigh-religious awe. And he'd not lasted long after that.
It had been kind of fun, even... Although not something she would have ever asked for. She'd made the right moans and giggles to make Jim believe he'd found a girl that would play along with his particular deviation, and he would do anything for her.
She turned the page. Of course with this spell, she thought, I won't have to ever play these games again. Now to see if she could manage the prepatory rites as Jonas had showed her...
Behind the Screen: Benne was described in the random generator as a Hedge-Witch seeking power and revenge. I have found her a fascinating mix as I have consulted the dice about her. She has been far more loyal or brave than the initial character ought to have been. She rolled 12 on her Loyalty check to see if she would abandon the party to the Ape-men. She also has feelings for Jonas, but they are not nearly as important as her ambitions. She will still betray him if she feels that she can get more from doing so. She might make a great villain, or even a strange PC.
I wasn't sure, when I rolled that Jonas had his odd fetish that it would ever come up. Or prove a weakness. It has had good opportunities for both thanks to the perversity of the dice. I am ending up with a far more lurid tale than I expected. My hat is off to Venger Satanis for baking it in so well.
Behind her, Alil and Wene chuckled, comparing notes on the other swordsmen.
"Come on, Ben," Wene chided to her, "Of all these men, why choose Jonas, the skinny shoemaker?"
"I think he's sweet... " Benne replied, absently. A good, non-specific answer. An easy lie. But, somehow, she worried, that it sounded right.
The sea breeze had settled down, leaving the Islands cool and damp. That Which Rots in the Sky had moved to the Northern shore of the Island overnight. It was a relatively easy day to move along the shore until slightly after lunch.
It was as they rounded a horn of black stone that the sky turned magenta and green lightning struck the sand in front of them several times, creating growths of Grey glass.
"Shit!" Korl ducked back behind the stone formation.
"What's happening?" Holden drew his blade as he and the others flattened their backs to the stones.
"This is a terrible sign, my friend. We are seeing a Breach."
"A Breach?"
"It is known that since the Empire of the Snake-Men, the skin that separates, time space, and many worlds has been wounded on the Purple Islands. We who have lived here all know how to read the signs.
"Sometimes they are violent, sometimes they are gentle. Sometimes in the sky, or beneath the water, but usually on the land. But they are like Wounds and things wondrous or terrible can fall through."
Korl peeked around the ridge as he muttered, it was more a practiced litany now than the sharing of knowledge. "The sunken vessel you were imprisoned on, the ghosts that enslaved the others, the sword Mord carries... All come through the breach. Men, Women, Demons..."
At the center of the noiseless whirlwind they could see a starry sky.
Holden stepped out from behind the stone and strode towards it, holding the icosahedral amulet that was the symbol of his goddess.
"Holden, what in the Cold Hells are y' doing?" Mord tried to snatch him back. Holden pushed his hand gently away.
"This is why I'm here, Brother. Benedetti sent me here to try to heal some of the Wounds in Time in this place. She has sent me a test."
"Or y' could be in the right place to have y'r head bitten off by a Hot Hell Demon."
Holden ignored him, and knelt down before the Vortex. He thrust forward his holy symbol and prayed through gritted teeth.
... Nothing... The portal continued to spin as it did before, a ring of smoke and purple lightning around a patch of starry sky.
Korl muttered prayers of his own to Yog-Sothoth from a distance.
Horrified that his faith meant so little... He whom the goddess had given the healing hand, it tied a knot of terror and desperation in his gut. Desperate to do his goddess' bidding he rushed back to Mord and drew Elegance from his belt. The sword sent pulses of haughty disgust through him - - it held most mortals in contempt - - which only made him shame burn harder.
Several voices called for him to stop as he swung the ancient blade at the interface.
The sword shattered in a cloud of slivers that floated, defiant of gravity, before the mouth of the vortex, which shuddered for a moment. And then came a roaring noise and unearthly winds as the vortex wobbled and twisted unsteadily.
And then Holden was lifted from the ground by arcs or violet lightning and pulled inside, before the funnel shattered sending hunks of crystal in all directions.
Holden floated in a place where his screams could not be heard. There was no light, no air, no other matter to touch. Layer after layer his molecules detonated as they collided with antimatter. All things here burned and recoiled. There was no Time save Dissolution. His consciousness and Agony were an alien brightness.
And while his eyes blazed and disintegrated in atomic collision he became aware of something ancient and vast looming towards him. It reached out and caressed his mind. He could not scream, though he wanted to, and understood so much... Including how insignificant his screams would be. In fact he understood so much now...
Looking on in horror, Tarrant rushed forward and dropped to his knees, grasping his hallowed badge and prayed.
"Oh Faceless Lord, director of the Song of The Spheres, I entreat thee. I know Holden is the blessed of another God, and a prideful idiot, but he has fought bravely in your cause. Please, spare him this fate, and bless him with a wider perspective."
In response, a cool breeze picked up, and carried a scent of myrrh and the distant sound of chimes. And then Holden fell out of nothingness and landed in the sand. His flesh smoldered, stripped of all but a few shreds of skin. His eyes, smoking cavities stared ahead blindly. He sucked in air and screamed out smoke.
And then slowly the lost tissue began to regrow. He collapsed to the ground naked, but alive and shuddering. The miraculous healing had not restored to him his hair. His eyes and skin sbore patches of bright indigo. His voice seemed hollow and distant when he spoke.
Behind the Screen: This encounter was thirty miles of bad road, if ever there was one. It started off kindly: no traps, no random encounters, fair weather, and the Putrescence moving far away. The portal has 60% a chance of disgorging some extradimensional horror. None of this came to pass.
The big problem came when Holden tried to close the portal. In The Islands of Purple-Haunted Putrescence, clerics have a base 13% chance of calling down divine intervention. They may try once a week. I decided that Holden, confronted by the perfect exemplar of the thing he has been sent to heal, would ask Benedetti's aid to seal the Gate. Instead he rolled a 100. I felt that this abysmal roll needed something to commemorate it. I decided to give Holden a chance at a crisis of faith. I rolled a saving throw for him, and got a natural 1. Better and better. I decided that he could probably close it with the strike of a magic sword... Plus the table for what happens to a character that touches the Gate is too fun not to try. I gave Holden one last chance: a Wisdom check. No dice: Holden was having a stupid day.
He strikes the portal and I roll a 6: "Transported to the Antimatter Dimension!" I even gave him a saving throw, success to only send part of him through. Nope. The dice decided to send Holden on a trip, not just a few limbs.
I consulted the Oracle and it suggested he might come back as a villain later.
For one last try, I rolled for Tarrant's divine Intervention. I rolled 2 on a d100. Holden is restored to life, but transformed in ways I have yet to determine. I think a class swap to something strange and Lovecraftian from the OSR community might be in order.
Certainly, he seems a prime candidate for the Islands ' Messiah... Perhaps Khord has plans for him...
"Thank you."
He sat still, unmoving, staring out at sea for over an hour afterward.
It's blue skin shimmered in the emberlight, as if he wore a sheet of water like clothes. Of actual clothes he wore little other than a silken breechcloth and jewelry of pearl, coral, and shells. His face had fully, pouting lips of silver, and broad, black eyes, save the stormcloud irises. It had two slits where tis nostrils would be if it had hands.
It knelt from one to another, placing a webbed hand on their forehead and listening to their dreams. When it came to Holden it pulled its hand away as if burned. The look of curiosity changed to shock, then amazement, then determination, as the being allowed itself to become translucent -- al living shape of water, and them shrinking as it went, it lowed into Holden's nose. He snuffled once, and went back to sleep, oblivious of his new passenger.
Behind the Screen: Weird things happen at night once per week or so on the Purple Islands. The GM rolls randomly to see exactly what bizarre shift to reality occurs. In this case, the PCs fall under magic effects that make them sleep a full day. I determined that the responsible party was a spirit of some kind that wanted to steal knowledge. In the end, I chose some kind of water genie, and to give it the ability to possess its victims. I will be using the Possession mechanics from my module "The Face of the Temptress" for the mechanics, Holden has a head full of alien lore that the genie really wants to explore.
What this will lead to remains yet unseen.
They woke up wet and warm, but starving. The weather had changed a half-dozen times since they fell under the genie's spell, and all got the sense that they had missing time, but it took a careful survey of the tides by Koral to confirm their suspicions.
By then it was far too late to sense Holden's passenger and ward him off...
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