Thursday, August 24, 2023

What You Missed, Many Perspectives Part 2 - The Spaces In Between

Omri's Perspective: A few may remember a few weeks back I wrote a summary of several events and occurrences that I believed at the time to be connected. The TLDR at the start of that article was “Things are weird and it feels like reality is falling apart.” I can say now things are weirder than I thought and reality really was falling apart, or at the very least cracked.
What happened this weekend was the culmination of months of work from several entities. Most notable and pertinent is the Lord/Lady of Change who is the same person but who changes pronouns and gendered titles frequently. They may not even look the same next time they show up. Their servant, Robin Goodfellow, Robin the Merchant, Meerkat from an alternate reality, all one person with different names and faces, had been in ours expanding the cracks that exist between worlds in order to allow his massively more powerful master, Lord/Lady of Change, into our reality.

Space in Between is the space that exists between realities and worlds where they don’t quite touch. Things may pass through there or they may stay there. Cracks formed there, and Robin slipped through. Their master stayed behind until the cracks were wide enough. Odd events that have occurred have been because of these cracks in reality, of things coming undone. Puzzle pieces scattered about, a crumb trail leading to this event.


Friday night:


This all came to head this weekend when the Arbiter of Antioch took a group of people in answer to a prayer Janus sent out months ago and pulled us to this odd in between place where we could interact with the anomalies of reality breaking, and hopefully fix it.


We were told to split into three groups, and we would be randomly assigned a portal then sorted. My group was Aelias, Liselle, Minstral, Silva, Jean Baptiste, and Arias the Runner, as well as myself. We were on the smaller side vs the other groups’ 8 members, and our first task was to go into the Dreaming, led by this reality’s Meerkat. We confirmed it was this reality’s Meerkat as he did not recognize me and thus had not been the one teaching me reality magic. That was Robin. In the Dreaming we came upon Faelinn, who had been missing since June, who led us to Strathmore. Strathmore tasked half of us go and forge the sword of kings, and the rest of us went with Faelinn and Meerkat into the Space in Between where we could discuss how to get the Golden Seed, which was important to Coventry and the Aurorans. A denizen possessed Meerkat and we could ask them 3 questions, alas we did not know the truly important ones to ask yet.


Face Markings of the One in Meerkat

Returning to Strathmore’s hoard in the Dreaming we found 4 staffs. One of which was the Bone Staff that BC (Blue Coyote) wields, beware. The rest are yet unidentified. If you know what they are please share, I’m still trying to make sense of this event.



These had been potentially in the chamber of the seal that had been sealing the Lord of Change out, hence the importance of their identification.

Once our members returned we left the Dreaming. Meerkat and I used combined reality magic to get Faelinn out for the time being, though apparently she has since returned to where she was in June. I hope for her swift return in safety.


With all 3 groups returned we exchanged notes. One went to a Dreaming tea party at the center of the Dreaming with an inordinate amount of activities, including a vote of for Lucien or Minerva to run the Dreaming. A trial for Sun and Shadow, a mini dungeon, an odd fae tea party, one bird person telling Fortunes, a table to make something to anchor your being, a place to tell Randall stories, some sort of puzzle game.


The other group helped decide what would happen to Queen Meg. Some information was given that allegedly she was supposed to raise her son for a few years, not go in the Underhill as many thought. Not knowing what was cracks and what wasn’t, they encouraged her to go, with Sir Wil, who then stabbed her in the back before the group was whisked back to the central location we all met. Some said Sir Wil had a dark voice whispering to him. To be clear if you see Sir Wil do not hold these paradoxical actions against him, unless he’s a skald, then be wary for different reasons.


It’s at this point we saw our first change to the board. Other View articles entail what the other groups faced so I won’t detail what occurred with them.



This is what we would end up with, with some having been removed in the interim as at the end and at various points we were given opportunities to undo these changes. I will say now most changes were undone, except that which occurred with Sir Chan. As of Friday Sir Chan became The Champion, his sword Valor corrupted. Only thing that currently holds the clue to save him were golden angel skulls found scattered. 

Not seen is that one such affectation to reality is that The Champion, now known as Orlando, may return. He may have dropped anchor points. Whether its absence from the board means this is no longer the case is uncertain.


Our group next went into the Dreaming, we voted, and found a relic that only lasted the weekend. It was a Favor of Faylie somehow identical to the one Baron Diamond has. Several such odd relics popped up this weekend.


By the time our group interacted with the evolving new history of Chimeron, Queen Mahkta was going to bargain with Dionin to free Chimeron from the mists. We kept this deal at bay as long as possible and when we were forced to leave due to being pulled back to that central location, it was with the hope that we convinced the vampire Queen there were other ways.


The night unfortunately did not end there. We were forced to bear witness to two points in the original The Champion’s history, one where he had Matthew kill Dalindana, another where Sir Chan was to kill him. Both times were changed due to the weakening of the bonds of reality and due to an intervention given to him in a deal that I unfortunately witnessed, so when it resulted in Sir Chan becoming The Champion, that deal had to stay as it had been witnessed. Matthew did not kill Dalindanna, and Sir Chan obliterated Squire Liselle and Sir Aelias. The latter two are now alive, and the first point had been returned to its natural history of Matthew killing Dalindana.


A brief history of The Champion, Orlando, not Chan. He is not of this reality. He is the ‘sibling’ of the Lord of Change who brought him here, after they themselve impersonated the original Orlando of this reality and kicked them out. Lord of Change got bored and brought another reality’s Orlando here. This resulted in Antioch finally noticing something was amiss, and sealing the Lord of Change away. The original child is still missing. Minerva apparently views Chan Champion as a twisted image of her child but is still protective of his continued existence as The Champion, or at least so I’ve heard.


Saturday:


The next day was spent fixing anomalies as best we could. What we knew of what should happen and what shouldn’t. It wasn’t enough, as that night Lord of Change came through the dreaming and switched places with The Champion Orlando.


We all had belt favors with numbers and crosses on them, and letters, and ciphered numbers on the back and invisible words. Ypnn spent much of the time there working on that, and to the best of my knowledge still is doing so.


Blue Coyote showed up and his assassin guild, and confronted the lot of us. Blue Coyote was a coyote who was transformed by the magical sword of the color dimension Blue, hence the name. Blue showed up itself, so did future Sir Lars, Ragthor the demon, Ragnar of Blackstar guild, a past Sir Lars, any number of people as reality bent and cracked. 


Cultists trying to summon the Lord of Change used the heroes to do so. Since they killed the cultists, ‘innocents’, that fueled the ritual. The Lord of Change was/is one of seven, so I believe the number holds some significance.


A ritual given to others in exchange for favors with Ragnar of Blackstar Guild was to banish Blue. Unfortunately it released into Bedlam, or an adjacent thing that acted like Bedlam. Magnus allegedly sacrificed himself, I was dead for this, to shut the portal that we had opened.


Then Minerva showed up. Talked to some adventurers, she was pissed reality was breaking. Robin had said that there was nothing we could do to stop Lord/Lady of Change from coming through but we could prevent others from following. I do not know if we succeeded as we entered the Dreaming and fought nightmares.


Saturday night:


Crows, Matthew and Matthew, agreed to give information about what we needed in exchange for ginger molasses cookies. It needed angel, mortal, and demon blood, at which point the people would be bound to the doors.


A group of us drew on our knowledge of friends to save certain nightmare versions of them. Other nightmares were more straightforward fights. Apparently the Chained Gloom Father was there.


Once the door was closed, we left the Dreaming.


Sunday:


There were a forum of dream demons voting to undo the breaks that had been done. I believe most were undone. Then they, and some of us, voted on who would be the dream demon in charge. Soul Taker was elected under the promise he'd leave King Cecil, specifically, alone. Death Dealer is Soul Taker's second, Risk Taker is the third.


Then we were in Coventry, and bore witness to King James returning, then ascending with Dalindana. He put out that a new mortal avatar would need to be found for Aurora, not another of his reincarnations.


To summarize: The Champion is Chan, Soul Taker is leader of the Dream demons, the original child of Strathmore and Minerva is still lost, the Lord/Lady of Change is here now, and there might be more vampires afoot in Chimeron among other changes in reality. There's still lots we need to fix, and lots we need to confirm.