Anthe 4 - Eclipsed Existence

Day Four

Natalia had just woken up the alarm on her door going off, but she detected nothing. She goes to sneak around the house to try and find what it was and notices Adhamh’s door is open. She also creates an invisible servant to help keep watch. She goes in, nothing seems out of the ordinary, no evidence of a relationship or anything on Venus as a child, just that he healed her and she lost her arms in a train derailment. Natalia’s unseen servant checks in on the rest of the party and they are all safely asleep. She then goes back into her room till morning.

Morning comes and Azaki, Aster, and Natalia go downstairs to find food. Venus, Bibble, and Nett (another traveler are downstairs and talking about cooking in preparation for the eclipse. Natalia offers Aster some food for breakfast and he denies it, suspiciously, saying that he isn’t hungry.

Lynore wakes up to Wiz crying saying that Wilder is gone. She and the Painter go down to see if anyone has seen him, and no one has. The party and Venus and the others split off to go look for Wilder. Wiz stays behind with Bibble and Rogger so that he is there when Wilder gets back.

There is lots of bickering in the forest walk to find Wilder. Natalia explains what the eclipse is like for Aster. The party doesn’t really find anything that shows that Wilder was anywhere. It starts to get dark, the moon is getting higher in the sky, and the party heads back to the house. Lynore feels bad that they didn’t find Wilder.

They get back. Venus and Aurelia aren’t back yet. Lynore tells Wiz that they weren’t able to find Wilder. Wilder is sad, so Lynore tells him that she’ll go back outside to help him. She storms out, and when no one follows her, Natalia tells the Painter that if anything happens to her it’s his fault. He draws three wolves as companions, who are trying to track Wilder’s scent from the hat Wiz had. One of the wolves goes to Wiz and the other two circle the house. The Painter leaves them to do their thing and follows Lynore.

Aster makes some goodberries in preparation for the eclipse. Aster and Natalia chat, and Natalia starts to suspect that he might be the one who set off the alarm in the night. Bibble has Aster and Natalia watch Wiz to keep him safe. They make a human pyramid to play with him. Then the eclipse strikes.

Natalia cats an image to see if her magic is still working. Wiz dives for it, off of the pyramid, and breaks his arm in the process. Aster gives him some goodberries but his arm is still very much broken, so Aster goes to find Adhamh in his office to help heal Wiz.

Aster goes into Adhamh’s office and the door shuts behind him, and voices, not the voice, call for him to go down the stairs behind the secret bookshelf. Aster feels like he takes the backseat and descends down the stairs.

Lynore is mad that Wilder seems to just have disappeared, definitely had nothing to do with her own daddy issues. The Painter paints a horse, two bats, and a snake to search for Wilder while they head back to the house. The Painter has Lynore go inside first, and then he follows the trail of ink left behind by the wolves to a locked cellar door. The Painter tries to open the lock by hitting it and fails.

Natalia is still holding Wiz with his slightly fucked up arm when Lynore walks in. Lynore heals Wiz’s arm, it doesn’t look perfect, but it looks a lot better. Natalia, Lynore, and Wiz head back to the kitchen for some apple pie/apple cider donut therapy. Natalia enlists Artia’s help to help find Aster since he never returned and Azaki can’t use magic. Rit sniffs Aster’s bedsheets and then leads Azaki and Natalia to the office door.

In the meantime The Painter tries a lock cutter on the cellar and the chains are damaged, but not undone. Lynore and Wiz hear the ratchet from the kitchen and look out the window to see The Painter by the cellar looking frustrated. The Painter tells Lynore to come outside and help him. Finally the horse The Painter drew kicks open the door. Fog rolls out of the cellar and makes it hard to see anything else inside.

Natalia and Azaki get into the office but nothing is there and the bookshelf looks normal. It seems like Rit is tracking Aster’s goop, but it turns out he is pawing at the bookshelf. Azaki moves the bookshelf and the spooky staircase appears. Natalia calls for Aster but gets no response. Azaki descends down the stairs first with Rit on his shoulders and Natalia follows.

cue spooky music

Aster still feels out of control, walking down the staircase, hearing a steam contraption running in the background, and walking past an unconscious chained up Wilder. Aster walks until he reaches Adhamh who is standing over a metal box. Adhamh puts his hand on Aster’s shoulder and asks him if he wants his neck fixed. Aster is able to regain control to ask about the cost at which that would happen. Adhamh is elusive about the cost but it is heavily implied that Wilder would die.

Adhamh goes on to explain that the box is alive and the great healing that everyone wants. Adhamh pulls off the metal panels on the box to reveal a box with intricate metal edging, and faces on each side that glow different hues. The faces seem to be made of an unknown material that can best be described as water, it seems like you could put your hand into it. Closer inspection also reveals that the steam contraption noise was coming from the box, and is in fact the sound of it breathing.

Adhamh is unable to give the box’s bodycount and implies that the box is also a living breathing thing. Ashamh starts to feed Wilder to the box. Aster tries to pull on Wilder as he is being sucked in but is unable to save him. Aster starts to get pulled toward the box. Adhamh takes out a dagger and swipes at Aster leaving him on death saving throws.

Natalia and Azaki are still heading down the stairs, and can hear talking in the distance. Azaki calls out for Aster, and a fog wolf jumps out to try and attack him. It misses, and Natalia stabs it with her rope dart. The wolf looks like the wolves from the forest. Azaki attacks the wolf with his glaive and slices off the back half turning it into fog.

The Painter sends his horse ahead and shadow wolves begin to attack it. Lynore goes up to one of the shadow wolves and casts inflict wounds on it. She kills the shadow wolf and goes further in seeing Adhamh over Aster and Wilder’s bodies, and sees him pick up Aster’s body (who is looking extra dead). cue fighting more wolves Natalia and Azaki are doing well, but Azaki is doing the most work, Lynore is getting chunks ripped out of her and The Painter is doing…something?

Aster dies. (RIP King 🙏) and then proceeds to stand up. Aster is no longer Aster, it seems that someone else is in control now. Aster stumbles forward, unseeingly and unresponsive, and walks past everyone to the upstairs. Adhamh attacks Lynore and tries to drag her towards the machine. Azaki stabs Adhamh and kills him.

The box asks Azaki for Adhamh’s body. Natalia tries to stick Adhamh’s finger in the portal, but the portal pulls him in. It asks Natalia, “What do you want fixed?”. She asks it to fix the one who goes by Aster.

Natalia and The Painter go up to see “not Aster”. Not Aster insists on not giving a name and mentions that it is Aster’s chance at life, not his second chance. He wants them to treat Aster like a person, not a mystery, and never wants to return. He goes willingly down to the box again, and Aster is returned. Aster does not remember anything.

The Party regroups momentarily. Aster sits alone outside to ponder what happened. Natalia goes to her room to read the book “Not Aster” gave her. The journal tells the story of how Adhamh found Venus in a train wreck just off his property. The box was among the wreckage and whispered to him to kill the other two passengers on the train to save Venus. After finding the box it seems that Adhamh’s descent into madness was gradual with him eventually naming the box, Maeve, and talking about it as if it is his wife.

YouTube