11. Runaway Baby

It's been a while since I've written, I think. I thought I'd been writing every night, but recently I opened my journal and found.... nothing. My head has been all fuzzy. Maybe it's the alcohol or the Shadowfell. So, let me recap what has been missed.
Some of it may vary in detail, but that is the nature of time, memory, and magic.
We left the cellar to continue exploring Este to look for the missing individuals or perhaps some sign of a necromancer. Eli decided to investigate the river, and found a slight magical aura emitting from a strange sludge on its surface. Naturally, the mutt felt the urge to spend the next 10 minutes collecting it in vials to launch from those weird ass hatchets of his.
Before this unnecessary side journey, I'd found that the tracks of the people in the area converged and headed to the north of Este. So, we headed off in that direction, once again following the trail. Eli began to fly around in their mortar, scouting through a low layer of fog that had begun to coalesce. Time seemed to slowly pass, and I begun to feel the strange sense we were being watched. Something was niggling at the back of my mind, and eventually I realised. We were moving through trees, but there was literally no sound of any living thing. Not the bugs nor the birds.
I spotted a bird in a tree nearby, and felt a shock through my spine as I recognised it was made from bone. All the animals in the area were. All dead. All still walking... which explained why the air smelt like rotting flesh, and the amount of flies in the area.
Eli made themselves invisible and continued to fly ahead as the hour went by, and we passed a mill on the polluted river. A little further on, Eli reported spotting potentially hundreds of undead, heading straight for us. Realising we had no hope of fighting this many zombies and skeletons, we turned around and ran for the mill.
The creatures followed us, boxing us in, and what followed was a brief argument about our best option, right up until Eli reported seeing a 3 headed skeleton in shining armour and riding an undead horse.
We then decided our best bet was to hide in the cellar of the mill and bolt it shut, hoping the horde would lose interest. It seemed to work for a time, but they eventually began banging on the cellar door.
As I'd been blocking the door with several iron bars that were inside the cellar, Bren, Eli and the mutt had been investigating a strange black tar-like pool in the centre of the cellar. It was mirror-flat and seemed to be reflective. Bren wanted a closer look, so used the glowing orb we had found a long time prior, and the pool began to recede, revealing... a staircase? But it seemed... off. Like the colours were wrong. Not poorly chosen, but wrong. Like someone had made stairs as described by a child, and the colours were created by a blind man who'd never even seen his wife's face. I suppose the easiest descriptor is... it was greyer than it should have been.
Bren decided to go through the pool into whatever it was on the other side, and the rest of us immediately began arguing. I was against going through, especially as Eli began to describe it as a Shadowcrossing. I'm not a fan of the idea of going to a separate plane of existence.
But, as we stood there and bickered, it began to shrink, and Bren was on the other side. Plus, ya know, there was a literal horde of undead upstairs. So, we went through as it snapped shut.
We found ourselves on a stairway, with voices in the distance chanting in a language I was not familiar with. Bren told me they were chanting "She is ancient, she is mother." It was pretty easy to convince the group that wasn't the best direction to go in.
So we wandered a while, avoiding traps as best we could, I fell into one and decided to walk along the ceiling to avoid the rest. Eli stuck their head into a chest and got attacked by a snake creature, but I beheaded it before they managed to die. With some aid from Bren's ability to sense the denizens of this strange house, we avoided wherever they seemed to congregate, at least until we found what appeared to be an room full of sarcophagi. Bren claimed there was some force in one of the caskets, so we carefully snuck up on it, and shoved the lid off, revealing a damaged body and a ghostly feminine figure. As we'd discussed, we all attacked... except for everyone else. Apparently they'd decided somehow that the ghost was going to be helpful to us, and so they spent a brief time talking to her about her history and the fact that she was apparently dead. Whilst they were talking to Belloch, I got bored so started taking shit off her body (I mean, she's not gonna need it), but didn't find all that much of worth, sadly. Although if I'm being honest at that point in time I was far more worried about making it back to the material plane.
Anyways, with Ramona's help we made our way out of what was apparently the basement of her mansion, and all the way to her attic.
Gordon immediately looked out the window and noticed a giant egg floating in the sky, as flashes of opening portals lit up the landscape with rays of sunlight. Apparently, it tried to reach into his mind and do something to him. I don't really know for sure though, as things from here on in got a little blurry.
After a brief encounter with an enraged undead nanny, I discussed with the group that maybe our best bet was to avoid walking through the house, and instead rappel down the outside of it. They agreed, and were fine with myself leading the way, especially as my boots would be very helpful in making a safe decent.
Avoiding looking at the apparent egg as recommended, I tied a rope from the attic window to the balcony, (as the group decided investigating what appeared to be the master bedroom might be a good idea) and waited for the others to come down. Whilst waiting, however, I began to feel like reality was shifting away from me. I questioned, and still question, whether this entire event even happened. But, writing this down is what I've always done (I think?) so it's what I shall do now... reality or dream.
We walked into the bedroom through the balcony door, and myself and Eli began to walk towards a full length mirror on one of the walls. The carvings of the wooden frame appeared to be shaped like ivory, and berries? Or were they eyes? I never can tell. Or I can't ever tell? Hmm. Strange. The outside of the mirror changed as I walked closer. Or am walking. Or will be. Time is odd.
Oh shit I've been rambling. Yes. So, basically, behind the mirror was not the same as in front of the mirror, and I was inspecting more closely when a jellyfish demon creature began to reach for me, and Bren, who had been strangely quiet and not so self righteous smashed the mirror, chopping the hand off.
Being a wise man, I picked the hand up with my left arm, as I always do with dangerous spooky things... probably a good habit to keep at, considering I'm pretty sure the demon possessed my arm... I'm honestly still not sure exactly. If memory and understanding of how things work serves, it was possessed, and began trying to choke me. When I managed to fight back, it cast a spell at me that literally started burning me to death... which wasn't fun. The others at this point were most unhelpful, with someone throwing a burning blanket at me, and Eli summoning a shocking amount of flammable liquid as I ran outside, briefly being horrified by an translucent egg in the sky the size of a house, before running further to a small pond. Once there, I found this liquid had no effect on fire, so I continued to run around screaming until the blaze ran out of fuel. At this stage, my arm started moving of its own accord once more, and Eli cast a couple spells at it until it quieted down. I knew keeping him around was a good choice.
My arm still felt a little warm, which I assumed was from, well, the fucking fire, and I felt so drained that I had to drink several healing potions we had picked up on our travels. I'd have liked to have a quick rest, but as we sat there we all collectively noticed that the portals had stopped opening in such a sporadic nature, and instead one massive ray of light was emanating from directly below the egg... which was probably not a good thing.
So, we got up and started to sneak over, with Ramona the ghost inhabiting Gordon as a means of transportation.
Running towards the centre of the sunlight in front of us, I found myself to be pulling ahead.
Eli had just cast some kind of spell on me, but I felt no different. Ahead of us lay a horde of ghasts, a skeleton of a creature that towered over everything, but still looked miniscule when compared to the horror in the sky that was slowly being lowered by a coven of magical creatures. Lowered into an astonishingly massive portal. The thing above looked like a demonic... baby? The fuck.
If memory serves we tore into the horde, myself making a beeline for both the giant skeleton and the magical coven. I couldn't say what everyone else did, but that is the heat of battle for you. Soon there was lightning and flames being tossed around, as Eli, Bren and Gordon ran around the edges of the fight. Meanwhile I was slowly culling the masses of ghasts as they seemed to have trouble landing a blow against me. Normally standing between multiple opponents is a little more lethal for myself than them. Who knows with creatures such as these.
As we felled the creatures, the coven began to target us, but Eli had managed to remove a couple of them at some point. But Eli was now themselves down, as the skeleton had ignored me after a moment and smashed them out of the sky. Bren picked them up and kept running for the portal, so I followed suit, bashing the head of a few things on the way.
However, as the others leapt through, the intense and ugly creature above took notice of me, reaching out through some unknown power as shadowy black hands the size of houses reached up from below and tried to grab me.
I honestly couldn't tell you how I escaped, all I can remember is squeezing out from the hands, running through the portal,
From there to quite recently I remember things in spurts and flashes. We bested the three headed skeleton in a final brawl. We cleaned up Balda. I spent some time drinking. We put out notice for those seeking to join the Night Walkers. I had a shadow hanging over me. We left town after Eli got shot by someone whose life they'd ruined back in Apple Bay. Flashes of Apple Bay, and creatures reminiscent of my arm, but sleeker. Dardus flashing a charming smile at me, and growing frustrated momentarily. My old arm returning to me, animated in some way. Travelling again, that shadow somehow always by my side. Where did it come from? Where did we come from? Are we actually here, or just some imaginings of a bored god? Does it matter?
Perhaps not.
More flashes of a stone wall, mentions of a ruined city of demons, or devils, or something. Offering to scout it out. Moving forward with the house and more to follow along. A magic removing creature, then it was gone. A tall, black spiraling tower, and a group at the top. Fighting some of them, somehow. Removing one from the top of the tower. People dying. Gordon, gone. Meeting a lively gnome with a lot of knowledge about some things, and shockingly little about others. Meeting a man who may as well have been Gordon with hair dye, but claims he isn't. Who knows really?
 
From there, it gets a little more solid. More recent perhaps, or maybe I'm recovering. We broke a gem out of its bracket from the top of the tower, but couldn't move it any further. We left, and received a reward from the Lord Commander Thalin.
A tinkerer gnome at the keep told me that my arm was dangerous, and to sleep on it each night, but I tend to take such advice with a grain of salt.
For the moment I'm done writing, my arm is heavy and I need to sleep. Tomorrow we head to Waelmoore Keep.