Session 84
Mar 15, 2025
- Sirius speaks with the spirit of Orianna, joined by Muvara and Lelune.
- The group takes a short rest after defeating the assassin.
- Dax discusses with Aydriann the importance of leaving the place better than they found it. Aydriann disagrees.
- Haslen (from the bag) has a conversation with Dax about the lute and dealing with emotions.
- Ember talks to Orianna, they talk about death, Lalune and Muvara
- Sol talks to Tavina about Lelune. It seems Lelune only intends to take Orianna’s light and feed her to the darkness.
- The party heads to Maryns and encounters a door knocker. They all end up signing a contract
Orianna stood…or thought she stood. Her form was hazy, unraveling at the edges like mist caught in a dying wind, as though the mere act of existing had become an effort beyond her strength. Panic clawed at her ribs. Darkness pressed in on all sides, an abyss without walls, without floor, without sky. Through it, brief slivers of another world bled through…ragged glimpses of the battlefield she had been wrenched from.
She saw them in fragments, as though peering through the shattered remains of a looking glass. Steel gleamed in the half-light, slick with blood. Shadows moved…figures she could not name, locked in a battle that now seemed impossibly far away. And then, a hand, reaching. The sword lifted from the ground. Orianna’s heart lurched. Fury, raw and visceral, coursed through her veins. That arrogant bitch…she was taking it.
She reached out, but her fingers found nothing. The vision collapsed into darkness.
And in that darkness, something sat.
A figure sat motionless in the void, bathed in an eerie glow that had no source. It did not shift, nor breathe, nor acknowledge her presence. Draped in tattered gray, it might have been a statue if not for the slow, deliberate spill of shadow from the hood that concealed its face. Wisps of black mist coiled and drifted like smoke from a dying fire. One hand gripped a shepherd’s crook, an almost laughable simplicity against the weight of its presence. But it was not looking at her.
“Hello, Orianna,” a voice murmured. Calm, but edged with something sharp beneath.
She turned sharply, and there he stood…Sirius, closer than she had expected, clad in the flowing robes of a spirit walker. There was a tautness to his face, something wary and worn.
“Our time is short,” he said. “Muvara and I shouldn’t be here. More so me. Muvara is… well, a god. Might be able to handle what comes next.”
Another presence stirred. A female entity stepped into the pale light, her approach as fluid as the tide. Her skin shimmered, deep blue like the ocean at twilight, her robes flowing like liquid shadow. In one hand, she held a staff crowned by a crescent moon, silver light pooling at its edges, casting her sharp features in soft glow. Her horns curved backward, fierce and regal.
Her gaze swept across the gathering, slow and knowing, before settling on the hooded figure. Cold disdain curled her lip.
“Muvara,” she said, voice thick with contempt. “You dare steal what is mine?”
Her head tilted, her posture shifting ever so slightly, just enough to make clear her dominance. “She is cursed. The blood laws leave no room for doubt. She belongs to me.”
And then, with a sneer, she added, “You are nothing. A whore who crept into the pantheon on the corpse of another. How sickening it is to lay eyes upon you.”
Silence stretched between them like a blade.
Muvara stirred at last, tilting their hooded head ever so slightly. Their voice, when it came, was soft but weighty, quiet but resonant.
“They will revive her,” they said simply. “And then she will belong to no one.”
Their unseen gaze turned to Orianna. “You hate me. I do not hate you. Xanthos chose you, because in the deepest dark, there must be light. But light flickers, and the winds of discord will come for you. They will try to snuff you out. Yet you have resolve…you can withstand this storm of past and future alike. Not to be a savior. Not to be a martyr. But to play the game, as we all must.
In the end, we are nothing.
And yet, from nothing, we can create the only thing that ever truly matters…what we choose to do with the time we are given inside this void.“
The void trembled. The shadows frayed at the edges, retreating like silk pulled too tight before tearing apart. The world beyond…the battle, the stolen sword, the blood-slick ground…flickered in and out of focus. Reality was shifting, and soon, Orianna knew, it would drag her with it.
Lelune turned to her, the moonlight still coiling about her staff, silver glinting in her horns. Her gaze was unreadable, yet piercing. There was no warmth in her eyes, only the slow turning of a mind ancient beyond reckoning, a goddess whose favor could be as fleeting as the waning crescent in the sky.
“You have feelings for Seryna, don’t you?” she asked. Her voice was soft, almost idle, but there was something underneath…something pointed, a needle beneath velvet. “She has feelings for you. Maybe not in a way you would understand. Unorthodox, perhaps. But love, after all, is never so simple.”
A smirk curled at the edges of her lips, though it did not reach her eyes. “Vampires and blood,” Lelune murmured, tilting her head slightly. “Not my creation, but I will cherish what I am given. And you, Orianna…your light is noxious. Unnatural. Poisoned by shadow, yet still burning.”
The shadows around them began to twist, thinning like breath in the cold. The world was pulling away, the dream…or whatever this place was…beginning to unravel. Lelune’s voice pressed against Orianna’s mind, curling around her like a whispering wind.
“Serve me,” she said, her tone sweet as honey laced with venom. “Swear yourself to me, and you can be with her. Seryna. And the power to aid your friends in their silly little quest.”
The silver light pulsed, and the void seemed to tighten around her, waiting. Lelune’s smile was knowing. This was not an offer. Not truly. It was a game.