Into the Mist

Journeying through the Mist

I can't decide if it is good or bad that there were so few of us earlier, but nevertheless, Roscoe, Seksgar, and I (and later Tara) finally entered that weird, dark mist hanging over the lakebed. On huge goats. That Seksgar summoned.* I knew it was going to suck, because Blackthorne had warned us what to expect, but it snuck up on me regardless. At first I was able to channel my focus into navigation, and for a while I think I ignored it, but eventually the mist got to me. It wasn't just a feeling... it was like the very essence of my being and everything I own was filled with a corrosive despondency that would never lift.

And then it wasn't just the despair but also a sense of resignation to live the rest of my existence in actual wretchedness. I lost sight of the others, my goat seemingly buckled under the force of whatever weighs on a goat's mind, and it felt like I was suffocating⁠—not literally, because my lungs worked fine, but like my actual being couldn't breathe. At some point I involuntarily started to cry.** Though I had hoped to not need it at all, or at least to need it later, one of Rue's notes he gave me before we left Waterdeep helped me regain control and move on. Roscoe and Seksgar had been similarly impacted which, I'm guilty to admit, also made me feel less deficient.

We pushed on to the X on Blackthorne's map, to the area that Runni and Keenor had said was disorienting. Some powerful magic manipulated gravity in the space, in an odd cylinder. Inside the boundary there was no mis, and it seemed there was a clearing. Tara confirmed that this gravity affect was created by force magic. With some trial and error*** and Seksgar's assistance, I did something weird with the planar border magic. Somehow the force fabric (?) balled up into a small bubble, and with his help steadying it, I pulled and stretched the bubble into a large sphere. I then cajoled the goat into going in the bubble, where it suffered some minor crushing but didn't get thrown up in the air like Runni had. We were able to cross the barrier in the same way, getting crushed a little ourselves, but otherwise making it through unscathed. I need to figure out how to reliably and independently recreate that effect, because I think I made an intensified space of gravity, and that could be useful in the right situation.
 
Inside the Boundary

That weird stone from Ash was somewhat of use today. It at least gave us a head's up that we were near evil, though I would argue we already knew that. Seksgar was fairly certain there were no recent tracks or signs of people in this area for a while, which tracked with what we knew of this location. Tara tried to ask Taika for aid via an interesting fortune-telling ritual. The thing that sticks with me, even now, is that she felt we would "get both good and bad results here." I'm waiting for the bad to catch up with us.

It took a while, but Tara eventually found a metal X covered in grass. We dug a while until Seksgar discovered a chest. I think accessing the cache triggered something in the gravity magic, because when I finally had the sense to pay attention to our surroundings again, I could tell it was closing in. We rushed out, but I got trapped in my own magic and Tara had to drag me out, then Seksgar had to rescue both of us from getting thrown up by the gravity reversal. As soon as we were back in the mist, the same melancholy settled over us again; I honestly don't know how long it took us to regroup and get out.
 
The Result

Once out, Seksgar seemed to think something was following us, and I could make out some dark shadows darting around in the mist when I looked. They didn't seem able to exit the boundary, though. We then dealt with the matter at hand: we held a very noticeable chest we just liberated from cultists of Fury. Tara lamented not having a suitable place to go, and she didn't seem receptive to my suggestion that we hunker down somewhere.

And then I... did something? Or maybe the forest did. I honestly don't know. I think it was me, because at the same time, a weird blue flame bounced around and struck one of the shadows in the mist. That type of thing usually is only triggered by intentionally casting magic. So we climbed the rope into a space. I know that's hardly descriptive, but I don't know what else to even say. But it provided us a safe place to investigate the chest. (I don't know what the hells we would have done without Tara. I guess Seksgar would have smashed open the chest and the magical trap would have killed us both.)

Inside, we initially found:

• A suit of armor: It has ties to demons or demonic power and is cursed, but also provides additional protection, the ability to speak Abyssal, and gives you magical claws?
• A sword: This seems like a truly interesting weapon; it increases martial prowess and allows its wielder to help an ally simultaneously.
• A javelin: Also cursed, but it seems to return to the person who threw it.
• A luckstone

At this point I was quite frustrated, because this random shit didn't warrant the hiding place or the difficulty to get it. I refused to believe this was all there was and spent 20-30 minutes searching like a petulant child. I did eventually find a very subtle indentation that I could press inward, which yielded two tomes, one marked with Fury's symbol and the other a plain, leather-bound book with no lettering. The leather book appeared to be a ledger of every member of the cult, the date they joined, and the date they died, if relevant. There was also some sort of ranking system along one side. The other book is a spell book, but full of all the horrific things one would expect of Fury's followers⁠—rape, murder, sacrifice, blood magic, and much more. I buried both tomes deep in the haversack. Never have I so desperately wanted time in HoZ to study something so thoroughly. I want this information both in the HoK and somehow shared with Rue, since he is also pursuing the Baraba.

I suggested destroying the chest, and Tara asked how we could be sure we had found everything. I still don't know that we had, but she did find more items upon a third inspection: a soul coin; an evil-looking amulet made of human teeth; a small, leather bag, intricately designed in gold, red, and black, with 5 blackened fingernails inside; and 6 vials of blood. I haven't had to deal with this much creepy paraphernalia since being with the Protectors, and even then, usually the clerics did it.

We were mid discussion about whether to smash the chest and feed it to Bagamuffin (the name Seksgar has given his hungry bag/pet) when the safe place I had made us just stopped existing. I stopped our fall, but I guess for future reference, assuming I can do that again, it doesn't last long.

[Zin doesn't look like she finished the day's entry, but she must have gotten distracted at this point, because there is an errant mark and nothing more.]
 
Footnotes

*This is really getting out of hand at this point. I remember once, in a very desperate moment when taking fares across the forest as a guide, I managed to call forth some celestial beast creature, but that was one and it's not something I think I can actually do again, at least not on a whim. How many of this band of idiots can summon animals?!

**I guess it is a small solace that it wasn't blood this time?!

***Admittedly, it was kind of fun to get shunted backward by the magic reacting to my prodding.
 
Margin notes in Sylvan and a cypher, for Rue

• Your note saved me. (But I think Roscoe now thinks reading is bad for my wellbeing.)
• Hilariously, I have used most of that random shit that I shoved in the quiver that one time...
• Technically yesterday was a month, at least in Prime Material time.