Session 14, VP1

The world shook around our heroes. With a blinding flash, the face of the structure had disappeared, replaced by a curtain of living shadow. As stray rocks fell into the river at the bottom of the gorge, the sound was heard to echo deep inside of the structure’s gaping maw. Naivara & Bergie were hesitant to push through the shadow, but Gunnar held no such reservations. After having Skeldr relight his torch, Gunnar strode purposefully forward, disappearing from sight.

Terrified of losing their friend, Bergie & Naivara followed him beyond the veil. The interior of the structure was constructed out of the same odd stone as the exterior. An octagonal tunnel stretched far ahead; a distance impossible to measure. Naivara released Peach, and had her light up her tail, as Bergie lit his shoulders ablaze. Even with the combined light the heroes wielded, they were unable to see further than 3 feet in front of them.

Oddly, the stone surrounding them reflected none of their lights back at them, instead swallowing them whole. Trailing in Gunnar’s current, the group walked forwards. The tunnel never seemed to change. No turns, or branching paths crept up from the darkness. Their own footfalls did not echo around them, leaving them in a stagnant silence. It could have minutes or hours before they came across anything different. In front of them were three paths.

One continued forwards, while the others branched to the left & right. Gunnar closed his eyes, and breathed deeply in front of each tunnel, attempting to see if he could tell which seemed the least musty. After a few seconds, he was able to determine that the central path seemed the “freshest”, so the party began heading down it. The roof and walls of the tunnel closed in considerably, forcing Bergie to hunch forwards. All of them noticed a feeling of dread circling ever tighter. Was it just a trick of the light, or were the walls slowly……shifting somehow as they continued?

With headaches building from the strange surroundings, the party trekked deeper, until they could see a dim blue light coming from up ahead. The tunnel ended abruptly, revealing a small, octagonal room. Straight across from them, set into the middle of the wall 20 feet away, was a human-sized sarcophagus. It almost appeared that they were looking down into the room, staring at the coffin on a floor.

Naivara suddenly let out a gasp and began to gibber under her breath. In halting breaths, she told her companions that the walls had not been shifting as they travelled: they had shifted, and were now standing on the ceiling of the tunnel. Bergie & Gunnar looked around, unable to see what Naivara was trying to explain.

In fear, she pointed at the flame on Gunnar’s torch, which, somehow, appeared to be inverted, as if it were burning towards them against the pull of gravity. Gunnar quickly dismissed the flame, while Bergie stood frozen with confusion. As the heroes looked back into the octagonal room, they realized that it was much smaller than it had originally appeared.

Before, the sarcophagus had appeared human-sized, and been on a wall 20 feet away: now the sarcophagus was clearly only a few feet long, and the wall it was attached to a mere 2 feet away. The lid of the sarcophagus had small red & blue octagonal crystals set into it, forming a word in Elder Futhark. Gunnar was able to translate it as a name: Gudbrund.

This was too much for Naivara, Bergie and Peach. They had felt uncomfortable this whole time, and now voiced their desires to leave. Gunnar insisted they needed to open the sarcophagus, to see if there were any important relics that might be used to save the Frigga Temple. Without waiting for their agreement, Gunnar gripped onto the lid of the sarcophagus tightly, and pulled with all of his strength.

The lid resisted for but a moment, before coming loose and shattering to the floor. Inside lay a bundle of cloth, wrapped around an object roughly three feet long. Against his friends’ protests, Gunnar reached in, and began to pull back the cloth to reveal its contents.

A black sword lay within, seemingly hewn from one solid piece of metal, with no distinction between the blade and the hilt. Sporadically placed along the sword were small red & blue crystals, smaller version of those decorating the sarcophagus lid. Bergie & Naivara tried to convince Gunnar that they should go let Brenna know what they had found, and turned to leave.

Both of them froze solid; the shadowy entrance they had come through into the structure lay but footsteps behind them, the tunnels they had travelled completely gone. As one, they turned to look at Gunnar, but they were too late.

Gunnar’s eyes were a curdled white, and his hand was reaching up to the sword. Naivara & Bergie both grabbed onto his arm, attempting to pull him back, but Gunnar’s strength was too much for them. He traced a fingertip along the blade’s edge. The blood that welled forth slowly dissipated into the sword, and wind began to gust forth.

Suddenly, Gunnar’s eyes returned to normal. He came out of whatever trance the sword had laid upon him, and stretched out to touch the gems in the sword, with seemingly no memory of what had just transpired. The wind began to low even harder, as Bergie & Naivara attempted to convince Gunnar they needed to leave.

Gunnar opened his mouth to turn them down, when a streak of shadow began spooling out of the sword, taking the shape of a human arm. With no further discussion, the heroes turned and ran back outside of the structure. Naivara & Bergie tried to find anywhere to hide outside of the structure, while Gunnar stood silently on the steps. Their breath all caught as the shadows obscuring the entrance rippled, and a living shadow stepped through.

The silhouette stood roughly 7 feet tall, and appeared incredibly muscled. Its every feature was crafted of a living, roiling shadow. No facial features could be discerned, but they could feel the shadow’s eyes burn into them. It opened its mouth, speaking Elder Futhark in a guttural, scraping voice. Gunnar could only understand one word the figure spoke: “KNEEL”.

Undeterred, he tried to speak back to the figure in Younger Futhark. This caused the shadow to tilt its head in curiosity, and it walked slowly towards Gunnar. As his friends watched in mute horror, the shadow placed one of its fingers against Gunnar’s forehead. His eyes turned momentarily as black as night, Gunnar reeled from the flashes of memory he could feel forced into his mind. When he snapped back to himself, he realized that he could now understand what the figure was saying. Amazingly, he now found he was now able to speak Elder Futhark as well, some dark boon from the shadow.

In the brief exchange they engaged in, Gunnar was able to confirm the group’s suspicions that this was Gudbrund, somehow resurrected. Bergie & Naivara were still unable to discern anything said in the brief conversation. Gudbrund seemed to ask something of Gunnar, pointing downwards. After a brief moment of hesitation, Gunnar answered something in return, causing the figure to nod its head. It spoke a few more words, before suddenly swinging upwards diagonally with its blade, cutting Gunnar from hip to shoulder. The blow knocked Gunnar out, and his limp body rolled to the bottom of the steps, landing face-down in a growing pool of his own blood.

Gudbrund descended towards the other two heroes, stepping over Gunnar’s unconscious form. Naivara dropped to her knees, intuiting that it had been telling Gunnar to kneel before it, and she screamed for Bergie to do the same. Gudbrund slowed as they did so, and seemed about to speak, when a rock suddenly flew through his chest, sailing into the dark of the gorge.

Skeldr, placing himself between the shadow and Gunnar, began firing an endless stream of Rock Blasts at Gudbrund. Without a sound, Gudbrund turned, and stalked towards Skeldr. The rocks continued to pass through without any effect, as he reached one massive hand downwards. The shadowy fingers pinned Skeldr’s mouth closed, and wrapped around his entire body, before hefting him into the air. Gudbrund violently slammed Skeldr into the floor, as Skeldr cried in pain.

Naivara began attempting to creep towards Gunnar’s body in the hope of moving him, while Bergie shot to his feet in anger. Bergie yelled, getting Gudbrund’s attention, and momentarily halting him from continued to crush Skeldr. Just as Naivara was about to reach Gunnar’s body, another voice speaking Elder Futhark called out from within the structure, as five smaller spirits strode into view, pointing at Naivara. As Gudbrund’s gaze turned back towards her, Naivara once more dropped prone to her knees, hoping to avoid a reprisal.

The newly-arrived spirits exchanged a few words with Gudbrund, and he seemed to let out a laugh, letting Skeldr fall from his grip onto the ground. He pointed at one of the shadows, and it began to walk towards Naivara & Bergie. Turning their backs to the heroes, Gudbrund and his other spirits began to walk on air, ascending out of the gorge. T

he spirit left behind formed a club at the end of its arm, as Bergie hefted his shield and hammer. Naivara convinced Peach to help fight the creature, and battle was joined. Bergie’s blows didn’t seem to do much damage to the creature, but they were able to make contact. Peach’s electrical attacks seemed to have greater effect; the light from them seemed to make parts of the spirit weaken and fade. As the spirit faltered, Bergie swung upwards, attempting to knock its head off, but it moved just out of reach.

At the same moment, Peach fired off another burst of lightning that sailed over the spirit’s head. Seeing his chance, Bergie leapt into the air, and swung his hammer down towards the lightning bolt, firing it straight through the spirit’s head. Noiselessly, it disintegrated into nothingness.

With a moment to finally catch their breath, the heroes took stock of their situation. Bergie quickly ran over and used a potion on Skeldr, who then began to flip Gunnar’s body face-up. Naivara & Bergie discussed their options: they agreed they needed to work their way back out of the gorge, and back to Drillsberg, but were unsure how to do so.

After a moment, Bergie released Froza, and began explaining to her their need for her to create an ice bridge to the other side of the gorge that had stairs. Though still young, she was eager to help in any way she could. Unfortunately, her strength alone was not enough. Naivara realized she could help, and released Lus to spray water for Froza to freeze, rather than having Froza attempt to freeze the air itself. Once the bridge had been formed, Naivara took Gunnar’s climbing spikes, and attached them to her shoes. Slowly, she made her way across the bridge to test its weight. It held, but she was relatively certain it couldn’t hold too much weight at one time.

With the heroes on opposite sides of the bridge, they tried to work out the best way to get Gunnar’s unconscious form across. Bergie laid down his shield, and gently placed Gunnar upon it. With Gunnar secured, Bergie began to push him across the ice bridge. At that same moment, Naivara turned around and began to trek back across the bridge herself. The two locked eyes, and both attempted to tell the other to wait, but the damage was done.

The ice bridge shattered underneath of them, sending them plummeting 50 feet towards the river below. Naivara was able to use Lus’ Water Gun to help slow her descent. Bergie grabbed onto Gunnar, and rolled onto his back, intending to absorb most of the damage of the fall. Although they were all injured, they surfaced with a splash, and worked together to keep Gunnar’s head afloat.

Unfortunately, Skeldr was still above them, leaning over the edge of the small outcropping of rock. He waved his tongue desperately back and forth, as the current carried our heroes onwards. After ten or so minutes, a small gravelly shore came into view on one side of the river. Bergie & Naivara managed to wrest Gunnar onto the shore, laying him on his back.

Naivara released Flamon, and had him create a Fire Spin around them to help dry them off after their dip in the frigid waters. Bergie peeled back the remains of Gunnar’s bloody shirt, before taking out his first aid kit. Luckily, it seemed that since he had been standing on the steps, Gunnar had rolled backwards with the blow: the gash, although quite long, had only cut him about an inch deep.

Bergie was able to successfully stitch up the injury, and the heroes closed their eyes to rest in the warmth. A short while later, they awoke to Gunnar’s gasping coughs as he came back to consciousness. He attempted to sit up, but Bergie pushed his shoulders back down. The party discussed what had happened, and explained that Skeldr had been left behind.

This gave Gunnar the strength to get back to his feet: he refused to leave his friend behind. Bergie had Froza create a small ice raft, and Naivara instructed Lus to hop on it with Gunnar, using Water Gun to help move the raft upstream. Unfortunately, having been unconscious during the adventure, and armed with no light source, Gunnar was unable to locate the site of their fall.

After an hour, he returned, and they group reconvened. This time, they had Froza make a larger ice raft, thick enough to hold Naivara as well. With Flamon gently floating along above her head, the two heroes set out again to see if they could find any sign of Skeldr. A short while later, Flamon began chirping loudly, and flew over to the gorge wall, about 30 feet upwards.

With his light, they were able to see that the injured Skeldr was using his tongue to slowly climb down the wall, but was at risk of falling off into the river. Gunnar stood up and recalled Skeldr before that could happen, and the pair headed back to the shore. Reasoning that the water had to let them out somewhere, the group decided to follow the current further along. Froza reinforced the existing ice raft, and created a second one for Bergie. Once situated, the party floated downriver.

 

 

After a few hours, they found the river entering a tunnel. The roof was very low, enough so that Bergie would have hit his head had he not already been sitting down on the raft. The waters picked up speed, and the heroes rapidly found themselves bouncing against a rocky ledge where the river terminated. After climbing up, they turned to see the ice rafts get slowly pulled downwards with the river as it descended further into the earth.

The group re-armed themselves with lights once more, and followed the ledge as it entered a small series of pathways. An hour or so later, they could see starlight trickling in from up ahead. Inspired for a last burst of effort, they emerged into the fresh night air, and collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. Once they were able to get their bearings, they could discern that they had emerged several days journey away from Drillsberg, somewhere between the mountains making up Hrungnir’s Lay.

Unable to continue onwards at the moment, they fell into a deep sleep. The dawn’s light woke them to an incongruously beautiful day. A slight chill was in the air, though whether it was from their proximity to the ocean or the approaching autumn, they could not tell. After breakfast, the heroes decided that they should make their way back to Drillsberg as fast as possible.

Releasing Rhonda, Stompy, & Mary, the heroes rode off into the rolling Varfjell Fields with all haste. The only times they stopped were to eat, drink, & sleep. Along the way, they barely spoke, each consumed with thoughts of what might be happening in Drillsberg. In the morning of their third day riding, they once again reached the top of the cliff-face by the elevator down to Drillsberg.

Whereas before, they could hear sounds of people echoing out from the canyon, and smell the myriad scents from the market, now the area seemed bereft of all signs of life. Silently, they descended the elevator to the canyon floor, and slowly rode into Drillsberg proper. All around them, they could see signs of recent fighting. Roofs caved in, market-stalls broken, blood drying on the walls of the stony homes. Periodically, they saw the remains of pyres littering the streets, left to burn themselves out.

It wasn’t until they approached the Pokemon Center that they ran into survivors; a cloaked figure stood from the building’s roof, with a bow and arrow trained on them. Atop the nearby buildings, more people made themselves known, all with their weapons pointed at our heroes. After a brief exchange of words, the cloaked man realized that he recognized the voices of who he was speaking to. He pulled back his hood, to reveal the face of Erling, marked with soot, dirt, and exhaustion.

He told the party that for the past few days, Gudbrund and a growing army of spirits would attack as soon as night came, taking away anyone they could. With Erling coordinating the efforts, the citizens had managed to band together at three strongholds: the Pokemon Center, the nearby mining outpost, and the Colosseum. In the time the heroes had been away, Erling and his crew had fortified the Pokemon Center, boarding up the windows and adding a large metal door. As the party approached, Erling pulled the heavy door open, letting them in.

As their eyes adjusted to the dim light, they could see around a hundred or so people huddled together in the too-small space. Many looked injured to various degrees, and murmurs spread throughout the group as the party stood silently. After Erling accosted them, Gunnar asked if Brenna was around. Erling let out a dark laugh, before leading them to the guest rooms.

 It seemed that the light injuries they had seen in the lobby were the exception, not the rule: the guest rooms had been converted into a makeshift medical bay. Each bed was filled with people in various states of wounds & pain. They found Brenna towards the back, surrounded by several caretakers. A bloodied bandage ran across her eyes, and her right arm had been severed above the elbow. Although extremely injured and weak, she reacted excitedly upon hearing the heroes’ voices. They explained a bit of what had happened, and asked how Brenna had gotten so hurt.

She told them that Gudbrund and his spirits had emerged from the catacombs, and began to attack the acolytes present. Rather than kill them, Gudbrund waited until they were weakened, then pulled a gem from his sword, placing it on their foreheads. The crystal bonded tightly against their skin as shadows flowed forth from it, slowly turning them into more of his spirit warriors. Brenna’s acolytes had deliberately sacrificed themselves to allow her to escape, but she was unable to do so unscathed.

Promising to set things right, the party went back to the lobby. Naivara & Bergie healed up their teams, and swapped out a few Pokemon, while Gunnar stepped outside and made a phone call. Once the other two were ready, the group decided to try to enter the Frigga temple while it was still daylight, to hopefully recover the scrolls they had found previously.

They entered to find the temple desecrated. The murals along the floor had been carved with blades, candles were strewn wildly about, and signs of battle lay everywhere. A large hole had been knocked into the roof, letting in a beam of sunlight. The heroes made their way back to the study room, and found the scrolls just as they had left them.

As they attempted to head back to the lobby to leave, they found themselves accosted by three of Gudbrund’s spirits. Each spirit formed weapons out of their shadowy limbs, and the party rallied to fight them off. After a quick, well-planned fight, the heroes managed to knock out the spirits. The shadows receded from their forms, revealing them to be citizens of Drillsberg.

Bergie grew excited, believing they had found a way to free the people from Gudbrund’s control, but the shadows slowly began to re-form from the crystals as they watched. With heavy hearts, the trio made their way back to the Pokemon Center, and gave Brenna the scrolls. With no explanation, Gunnar began asking Brenna if she knew anything about a Pokemon named Gible, insisting that it was how they could defeat Gudbrund.

Bergie & Naivara stood by in confusion at Gunnar’s sudden line of questioning. After learning all Brenna knew, they restocked their supplies, and left the Pokemon Center once more. Naivara pressed Gunnar for an explanation, but he only answered in short, clipped phrases, heavily intent on the group finding a Gible. For what reason, he would not say. Equipped as best they could be, they began to trek into the sandy waste of Frigga’s Womb, in search of this Pokemon.

A short while after they began, they found themselves ambushed by a group of wild Pokemon, and managed to successfully drive them off. As they got ready to continue onwards, a swarm of Trapinch came streaming over one of the nearby dunes. The Pokemon broke around the party like a river, letting out terrified sounds as they passed. Suddenly, the heroes felt loud, booming footfalls approaching from the dune.

Glinting in the sunlight, a long, crocodilian head rose above the sand- and kept rising. A dusky yellow Pokemon covered in bits of jagged rock came into view, standing nearly 8 feet tall. Its scaly hide was tough, and along its back five long, jagged rocks speared upwards. Between the rocks, brilliant white electricity sparked and sputtered, mimicking an electric fence. The creature’s eyes zeroed in on the heroes, and a deep rumble began forming in its chest.

It opened its gaping jaw full of dripping teeth, lowered its head, and began to charge.