Characters and Retainers at the start of the session:
- Marcus - Melysee, Level 5 Knight
- Peter - Chadwick, level 4 Mage
- Ythan - Petra, Level 5 Thief
- Ella, who follows Albert - Level 2 Bard
- Elain the dog, follows Melysee
No one expects the psychic dinosaurs!
Saturday the 13th am
The session opened with the Magpies poised on the metal bridge deep within the Observatory.
From somewhere above—near the Armoury and the Chiaroscuro stairs—came distant screams, followed by the faint glow of falling light. It didn’t take long to realise what had happened: the trap they had left behind had found victims among the sailors of the Laputa.
Moments later, they heard an argument erupting above and then a body dropped from the darkness and struck the bridge with a sickening impact. It was Rex, once their retainer, nearly split in two by a single brutal cut.
The Magpies pressed on. Chadwick conjured a fae servant and sent it to watch the Armoury, then the party turned their attention to the chambers around the Nightingale shaft, where the great chain had once hung.
Below, they found what had once been a stable, now choked with dust and the skeletal remains of huge, alien insects. Higher up, a camber in with stored inside stone slabs carved with unsettling bas-reliefs of intelligent reptiles, and beyond them, a circular chamber dominated by a block of ice.
Inside the ice was a woman. She was strikingly beautiful, but wrong in a way that defied easy description—like a photographic negative not fully developed, her colours inverted, her presence unsettling. She clutched a book. Around the ice, the carapace of a spider-like creature lay with far too many legs.
Petra tested it with her blade, but it offered no resistance; the knife passed clean through dried flesh and struck the ice. That was enough. A ghostly form stirred within, the same woman now animate but insubstantial, still clinging to her book.
Nightmare Librarian
Attempts at communication failed. Petra’s last holly wafer was used, but it did nothing to banish the spirit, and the encounter turned violent. The ghost lunged, seeking to possess her.
Melysee broke first and fled, while Chadwick set to work melting the ice with magic. Petra ran but then made a precise strike through the gap in the ice melted by her mage companion and pierced the body within.
The effect was immediate: the spectre collapsed and vanished. When the ice was broken apart, the book was theirs.
Exploration continued. Petra climbed down the Nightingale shaft, confirming there was nothing further below on their side of the bridge, though a flash of light in the vast darkness below suggested that the opposite stalactite extended further down.
Above, she and Melysee discovered strange devices—tools designed to cut through rock, powered not by any mundane means but by blood. Rex’s body was drained without ceremony, his death feeding two of the machines.
Meanwhile, Chadwick began translating the recovered book. What he found was deeply troubling: a treatise on obscure psychological techniques, counterintuitive and powerful, capable of reshaping individuals and, if applied broadly, entire societies. It was knowledge that could reshape the fate of empires, a thing of immense value and equal danger.
Nearby, Ella worked through one of the reptilian bas-reliefs. The language was ancient, the imagery worse—dinosaurs feasting on humans in scenes that felt less symbolic than prophetic. As she neared the end of the translation, unease set in. She hesitated. Chadwick urged her to continue.
She did.
. “…. EATEN FOR THE SCREAMS OF TIMEAND WOUNDS (COHERENT?)LEFT UPON THOSE HALLSTHEIR DOORS AND PORTALS SHATTERAND WINDOWSINTO SECONDS (WE HAVE SEEN THIS (REFLECT?))OUR CROWN (OF BROKEN SWORDS(WHICH ARE THEIR CLAWS))AND MONARCHY OF SPEED AND WILL AND HUNTTO OVERTHROW THE SLIVER-WALL OF MANTHE PRISON-LORD WHO RULES IN IGNORANCEAND WHO WE WATCH, JUST OUT OF SIGHTBEYOND THE MOMENTS FLOW….”
The final words had barely left her lips when reality tore open behind her. From that rupture came ten creatures—dinosaurs. Human-sized, intelligent and covered in plumage, their intent unmistakable. They attacked immediately.
Psychic Deinonychus
The Psychic Deinonychus Ella was overwhelmed and devoured before she could escape.
Chadwick tried to cast Invisibility but failed; he fled instead, taking a vicious bite as he scrambled down a ladder. One of the creatures reached into his mind, offering him a bargain: lead them to more prey, and he would be spared. Desperate, he agreed, directing them toward the sailors above.
The promise meant nothing. The creature cast him into the abyss.
Elsewhere, Melysee and Petra decide to hide instead of using the blood-powered tools to bring down the bridge. She hid beneath the walkway, atop her faithful geko.
Some of the raptor-like creatures found her, but couldn’t reach her position. Using that narrow advantage, she moved carefully around the stalactite, approaching the Chiaroscuro stairs from the outside.
Petra slipped into the Stratification Hall and climbed toward the Armoury, the sounds of pursuit never far behind. When she reached the site of their earlier trap, she found devastation: a crater where half the stairs had once stood.
The two regrouped and made for the remaining path upward, heading toward the Mirror Cell, where light now spilled into the dark.
Inside, they found not safety, but four armed sailors waiting.
Far below, Chadwick’s fall did not end in death. He managed to cast Levitate mid-descent, arresting his plunge. But instead of returning to the Observatory and the carnage above, he made a different choice. He drifted downward, alone, toward the vast and lightless ocean beneath.
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