#otherwise i shall be sliding into everyone's dms soon...

[edencardoso]

( student / waitress at sherry's diner ) eden cardoso ( 24, she/her, cisfemale ) we hear eden is engaging, charismatic, & strong-willed, but can also be insatiable, disloyal & selfish. ( lulu antariksa ) ( dia )

SOME BIO INFO ⁠—

Born and raised in NYC, Eden moved to California after graduating high school in order to forge her own path away from her unreliable and severely estranged mess of a family. Before she was born her mom was an underpaid 9 to 5 customer service rep as well as (for lack of a better word) a full time gold digger that firmly had her sights on courting a Wall Street millionaire, but then the truth got out that her involvement with him was merely a mistress situation. When she found out he had a wife that he wasn’t going to leave anytime soon, their part time relationship fell apart... around the same time she finds out she’s pregnant. 9 months of drama and bargaining later, baby Eden naively arrives into the world and spent her childhood without ever knowing who her father is, other than the fact that her mother receives anonymously sent money each month + money put aside in an unseen savings account for Eden to access once she is old enough. During her teens Eden and her father were able to spend some time together intermittently, but both are so obviously out of their element around each other such awkward occasions were usually reserved for birthdays and holidays. Once Eden reached legal age, her mother fell back on old money hungry habits and tried to guilt Eden into giving over the funds to her to ‘manage’ (read: selfishly use as she saw fit). Eden, wanting to not be involved at all, gave over 3/4s of her inheritance, keeping just enough so she could be left unhassled and have a decent Fresh Start when she moved to California - a plan she’d been privately plotting many years in advance. 

Officially realized she was Gay, rather unceremoniously, when she went through a hookup phase during her first few months in Cali when she was homeless/traveling up and down the west coast as much as possible before she decide where to settle. She either couch surfed or relied on chatting someone up at a bar and being asked to come home and spend the night with them. She soon found out the encounters with girls hit wayyy different than with guys, and quickly stopped sleeping with guys altogether. Her sexuality ultimately went on to become something she used as an ego-booster. She doesn’t believe anyone is 100% Straight and will go the extra mile to prove she’s right. If she had to be summed up in a song, it’d be Beyonce’s Ego (which 100% is her go-to karaoke song) + Paramore’s Misery Business.

HABITS / TRAITS -

Personality-wise, asides from the qualities listed at the top of this page, Eden is quite stubborn, abrasive and guarded. Her upbringing makes her think everyone wants something from her/has hidden motives. Very much a follower of the motto “better to ask forgiveness than permission”. Puts up a steely front of being super independent because she wants to act like she can manage everything herself. To openly ask someone else for assistance is the most mortifying concept to her. Is lowkey stressed trying to shoulder everything on her own 24/7 but won’t show it because how others perceive her is of the utmost importance to her, and she wants to seem cool, calm, collected, and desirable at all times. Has never been in a Relationship because no one meets her unrealistically high standards. Can seem like a cold bitch when she’s fixated on a project, so will later overcompensate and be extra suave and complimentary towards anyone she thinks she’s offended in the moment. Loves running her mouth arguing about things.  Loves power and control - if she’s the one with it. Very cunning, smart, and unemotional. Strongly doesn’t believe in romantic love, but will use it as a manipulation tool via flirtation/flattering others.  Is enrolled in a part-time online university course majoring in business because she wants to start up her own one day so she doesn’t have to answer to no boss/authority other than herself. She predominantly works night shifts at the diner because she likes to have the day to herself to do whatever she wants. Also enjoys people watching - and the most fascinating characters tend to pop up at night time. She’s very observant of people, which usually manifests through brutally honesty commentary or thickly layered on flirtation. 

CONNECTIONS IDEAS -

Other previous New Yorkers she might have known whilst growing up

Anyone she hooked up with during her homeless hoe phase

A regular customer at the diner that she always ends up assigned to... whether this is a good or bad circumstance could be a fun variable. The fact that they’re always running into each other could make them fast friends that use her shift as an excuse to chill together, orrrr it’s someone super opposite to Eden and they have a reluctant sort of love-to-hate you dynamic because since she’s working she’s at their beck and call, no matter how much she’s irritated by them.

Study group friend/s that she lured over via tinder instead of connecting irl with her real classmates bc she’s shallow and wanted to hangout with someone cute instead

Workout buddy

Diner co-workers

and more! But that’s all my tired brain can articulate right now, kthxbye.

[zippdementia]

Part 65 Alignment May Vary: Twists and Turns Part 3

Aldric lies in a crumpled heap on the ground, his head a pool of blood and brains. Blackrazor lies silent beside him. Imoaza, still in her Drow disguise, instantly understands Zaeintar’s intentions. The man had to kill Aldric in order to fool the House Captain. Otherwise, all three of them would be attacked. Imoaza doesn’t have human empathy, her entire race could be described as “for the greater good,” (though that good is often for snake-kind, not for most others). Now that same mentality causes her to feel no grief, no remorse, as she follows Zaeintar’s lead in deceiving the House Captain.

“We found him wandering the halls,” Zaeintar is saying.

“Then why didn’t you detain him?” the House Captain, Raznika, asks sharply. Imoaza is quick to step in, as Zaeintar fumbles over his words.

“We tried, and the coward ran. We chased him all the way here. He’s not alone, either. He has companions, all of them working to destroy you.”

As if on cue, there is a tremendous explosion that rocks the whole pyramid. Zaeintar shoots Imoaza a look. Carrick must have succeeded in destroying the portals.

With the help of this, and some decent deception rolls, Imoaza is able to convince the male guards to go with Zaeintar to check out the explosion, while Imoaza escorts the House Captain to her chambers. The hardest part of all this for Imoaza is convincing the House Captain that she’s seen her before, as the House Captain knows all of the Drow in her service.

DM Notes: we never actually finish addressing this in the game as things move too fast, but behind the scenes I figure that Imoaza made her disguise based off of the dead Drow female that Zaeintar killed during their command center fight. That’s the “official” reason why Raznika trusts her. She thinks they are the same Drow!

Of course, this eventually leads to a fight. At the very top of the pyramid, right outside of Raznika’s chambers, Imoaza launches her attack while Raznika is distracted looking out onto the destruction and chaos that Carrick’s actions have created.

“You dare to strike a member of Drow royalty? You dare to strike a follower of the great Azor Khul?! My poisons will course through your veins and drag you down into your own personal hell.”

“Your poisons will be be like a pleasant, warming fire inside me.”

Imoaza is a vicious opponent one-on-one and immune to drow poison. The House Captain soon retreats into her chamber, slamming the door behind her. Imoaza gives chase and a blast of fire emanates from the trapped door, engulfing her.

Meanwhile, Aldric sits in the hallway, breathing deeply. “You ready to get up, man?” Blackrazor asks him. Aldric nods and looks at the blood that had sprayed onto the wall and floors of the hallway. It is slowly disappearing as Zaeintar’s illusion spell wears off, his final bid to get Aldric and Imoaza within striking range of the house captain. So Aldric, very much not dead, gets up and finds his way through the hallways, following the sounds of Imoaza’s magic. He arrives in time to see her hit by the trapped door, pushes her aside, and leaps through the fire, charging Raznika. Raznika is crouched behind a hastily kicked over desk, firing small poisoned bolts at him that he ignores, even as they pierce his armor. Then the two lock blades, Aldric swinging Blackrazor in arcs that seem to tear apart even the air itself, and Raznika swinging a longsword in one hand and a whip of nine-tails in another.

Aldric backs off after the first volley of attacks, surprised by the tenacity of his opponent. The Drow circles him, waiting for any opening. Aldric kicks the over turned desk at her and in the brief moment of respite, grabs his horn and blows it, summoning the souls of the Green Company.

A dozen ghostly warriors burst into the small room, solemnly calling out the songs of the Green Company while they descend upon the bewildered Drow. The House Captain fights bravely, even takes three of the spirits down, but eventually she falls to the axes and blades of the company. Aldric crouches by her and rips the blue stone marker from around her neck.

The fight over, the Green Company gathers around Aldric. “Commander,” they ask, “what are your orders?”

Aldric stares out over the varied faces and figures of the Company, recognizing everyone. There is Beanpole, the lanky fighter who lost an ear fighting a troll. Hazelbrush, the loud mouthed female halfling who could outdrink Aldric even on a thirsty night. Jacques, a foreigner to the main continent, who spoke little but always knew how to make Aldric laugh. A dozen men and women before him, and he knew all of them. As they look to him as their new commander, Aldric feels nostalgia wash over him and a pain grips his heart. He knows that these are just shadows, phantoms born of his own memories. And while solid enough to harm his enemies, his destiny lies not in holding onto the past but in creating the future and a new company. He wipes away tears and tells the company that the group needs to get inside the silver monument and that the armies below must be kept distracted. The company roars its approval, Hazelbrush leaping down from the Drow’s fine table where she had sat her fat rump and leading the charge out of the room and down the side of the pyramid, a ghostly army rushing down to do battle against the enemy of their commander, Aldric.

As they descend, Carrick appears, leaving his gaseous form and staring down with the other two over the scene of devastation. All is chaos below. Drow fight the company while the hordes of hobgoblins try to regather themselves as the portal device continually. But before they can, there is a massive explosion (one of Zaeintar’s traps, set for his own kind?)

The whole scene goes crazy at this point: a chasm runs down the cavern, splitting the earth around and underneath the Yuan-Ti pyramid. The pyramid buckles and begins to sag, cracks appearing all down its length as its tremendous weight is pulled into the chasm. From the chasm climbs the beast from below, the strange long limbed creature. It howls and rushes into battle. 

The players fly (Imoaza’s magic spell) over this destruction and down to the silver monument. Aldric spots a slot in the monument’s door and inserts the blue stone key then removes it. There is a sound like a soft bell and the door slides smoothly open, revealing a white passageway. Aldric ducks inside quickly. Imoaza hesitates, looking back out at the battle and beyond it, to the pyramid that is slowly beginning to break apart.

Carrick sees her look and stops, not sure how to comfort the Yuan Ti, unsure even of how to read the look in her snake like eyes. “We have to go,” he says softly. She nods and then turns and brushes past him without a word. Carrick looks into the white passageway and fights off a sudden and almost debilitating feeling of deja vu, like he’s been here before. Then he enters and the door slides shut behind them.

The Surveyor and Carrick’s Past Life

“I am Azor Klhul. Did you really think you could enter my sanctum without me noticing? But worry not: for now you interest me and as long as my interest continues, so too shall your life.”

“Oh piss off,” Aldric said, staring back at the face that seemed to be magically covering the walls and ceiling of this rounded entrance hallway. “I already killed one of your dragons.”

“And I destroyed your little portal out there!” Carrick added in. Aldric nodded.

“Yeah, it isn’t great out there. Would you like to join us and take a look? Your army is completely falling apart.”

Azor Khul’s face hesitated and his eyes closed for a long moment, his face twitching as if he was reacting to something none of them could see.

“No...” he said slowly. Then the eyes opened and they were full of fury. “You insignificant little worms!” he shouted. “How DARE you disrupt my plans? You only delay the inevitable by this! You think you have saved your little valley? We shall regrow! We shall recreate!”

“But the path to the surface is cut off,” Carrick said.

“Which means you are stuck here with us,” Aldric said.

“And we don’t intend to let you leave this place. It will be your tomb,” Imoaza said.

“No,” Azor Khul said, and this time there was no denial in his voice, only a promise. “I shall go on. And so shall you, though it will not be pleasant. You humanoids are always seeking eternal life, are you not? Well, my god can give it to you!”

“We know better than to believe the lies of Tiamet!” Carrick retorted.

“Tiamet? Haha, that weak little bitch, trapped by the devils? No, the Hobgoblins and the Drow may believe I worship Tiamet but that is only because their minds would break if they saw my god’s true form. It is easier for them, simpler if they don’t try to understand too much.”

“Who do you serve, then?”

“I serve a true arbiter of life and death. You shall meet them soon enough. You will be killed now, but you won’t die. I’ll bring you back, with my god’s power, and you shall become part of our eternal study. Everlasting life, however unpleasant, will be yours. But for now I will say farewell.”

At this, the doors at the end of the hallway opened and the companions found themselves facing down four humans, wielding guns--reminiscent of the ones that Zaeintar carried, but much larger. At their sides crouched four black beasts, like smaller versions of the one Aldric fought at Brindol, ridden by the Goblin who once rode Regiarix, the Black Dragon. These were not dragons, however. They were something new.

“Men, unleash the Grendelspawn and shoot down any of the intruders who survive their attack.”

One of the men, taller then the others, with a receding hairline of short cropped black hair, barked an order and the black beasts rushed forward. Carrick unleashed his fire whip in preparation and suddenly the man who had given the order called out one more word:

“Commander?”

Within seconds of the word, the men all turn their weapons on the Grendelspawn, blasting them into oblivion while the players crouch in readiness and some confusion. Then the leader of the men strides forward and welcomes Carrick back to his ship.

Obviously this leads to some more confusion but we finally get some of the back story for what’s going on with Carrick as the man (who calls himself Bob) tries to explain.

Carrick was once known by another name: The Surveyor. He traveled the stars bringing human life to planets where he felt it was appropriate. He did this via the use of crystals, which he would implant in the earth and which somehow gave birth to new life. When The Surveyor arrived on Toril, he found other races already there and especially bonded with the Yuan Ti (why is uncertain). He shared his technology with them but when they learned of his plans to populate Toril with human life, they became suspicious of him, believing that he meant to place their civilization under human rule. Thinking of themselves as a master race, they turned on The Surveyor and he was forced to flee the planet, leaving behind many of his crystals, which would later be found and harnessed by the Gulug, precipitating the War of Seven Sorrows.. which leads into Karina’s backstory.

The Surveyor had one gem, a huge jade stone, which was filled with a dark essence, a Star Spawn from beyond the veil of reality. Unknown to the Surveyor, this gem had been in communication with the Yuan Ti and had lent them some of its power to build their hex blades. It also had subtly directed them to construct a device by which they could summon it into the physical world (the same device the players found in the basement of the pyramid). When The Surveyor boarded his ship and left Toril, the Yuan Ti activated this device and called for their new god. And he answered.

The Surveyor’s ship was taken over and directed back own to earth. In a panic, The Surveyor ejected the jade gemstone from his ship, where it broke apart in the atmosphere and spread around the world. But it was too late: the Star Spawn was able to manifest and directed the ship back to Toril, where it crashed into the Yuan Ti’s valley with the force of a comet, destroying all but their temple (and burying that deep underground). From the ship emerged the Star Spawn and he began wantonly slaughtering all he found, mostly the Yuan Ti. The Surveyor survived the crash as well and faced off against the Star Spawn. In the culminating battle, The Surveyor was killed and the Star Spawn so grievously wounded that it fell into a deep hibernation. With its gemstone broken and scattered, it could not reawaken.

The ship’s crew, Bob and others, hunkered down to wait out the milenia for the return of their master. But when the ship’s doors next opened, it was to admit Azor Khul. Drawn by the slumbering but still active mind of the Star Spawn, he immediately directed that a search begin for the jade gemstone pieces. He brought with him a host of drow to help and they soon captured and subjugated more creatures into his service. They began searching the world over for the gemstones and, more quickly than might be imagined, found them. Many had been carved into relics of power by civilizations that recognized their power (if not exactly where that power came from or what harnessing it could mean). As the gemstones were gathered, Azor Khul began directing his forces in a attack against the Elsir Vale, setting up portals so that he could send massive armies quickly into the Vale without having to traverse the far flung hallways of the Underdark. His plan was to take over the Valley and establish a new society to worship him and to, eventually, spread beyond the Vale’s borders. He was on the very edge of success.

And then, unexpectedly, The Surveyor returned as a new life, named Carrick.

This story is made somewhat humorous by the inability of the characters to grasp some of the concepts discussed. Spaceship? What’s that? Well, do you know a sailing ship? And do you know the sky? This is like a ship that sails a really big sky. The more the characters try to understand, the slower and more simple Bob becomes in his explanations, describing RE-AAA-LLY BIIIG SKY SAAAAIIILING and THEY COME FROM BEYOND THE CLOOOOOUDS. It’s communication at its finest.

While the story is being told, the players have been taken to a scientific bay to be healed by a scary looking dentist chair called the Enervator and they get to meet the scientist running this area, a woman with shoulder length brown hair and an easy smile named Fiona. Fiona and Bob also fill them in on the party’s best next steps.

A Gross Gamble

“Azor Khul has taken refuge in the command center,” Fiona said, running her fingers along one wall and quickly scanning the symbols and pictures that appeared there. “He’s locked down most of the ship and he’s rerouting power. Massive amounts, though I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”

“Hey, maybe you could show me how to work this thing?” Aldric said, moving closer to Fiona. “In return... I could show you my sword.”

Fiona blinked, not comprehending. “But I can already see your sword. It’s there in your scabbard.”

“You haven’t seen it unsheathed,” Aldric replied, winking.

“We don’t have much time,” Bob said, cutting the innuendo short. “Whatever Azor Khul is planning, it won’t be good for any of you. Commander, what are your orders?”

Carrick stared back for a moment before realizing Bob was addressing him. Then he looked around awkwardly, as if waiting for someone else to speak. When no one came to his rescue, he cleared his throat and spoke: “Well, this is my ship, right? Then it’s time to try and take it back.”

Bob nodded. “Then I have some weapons to help you.”

“And don’t forget the slugs,” Fiona added, looking past the hovering Aldric.

“Slugs?” Imoaza asked. “What are we supposed to do with slugs?”

Bob and Fiona start handing out weapons. Aldric gets dual pistols with a high critical range. Aldric gets an anti-matter rifle. Imoaza gets a rifle with a grenade launcher and number of other attachments. None of them know at all how to use them and a little pandemonium hits when Aldric decides to test his weapons by firing them at the floor, sending lasers bouncing all over the room. Those will come into play again.

Three more important things happen this session. First, the players opt to be infected with Slugspawn, living pieces of the Starspawn which will wrap around their brains and protect them from Azor Khul’s psychic energy and attacks but which also runs the teensy weensy risk of causing their heads to explode as the slugspawn matures and takes over the host’s body. Still, they decide to go through with the risk because (a) it’s a huge payoff to be able to avoid psychic attacks and charms, and (b) because it’s epic as hell. The implant process is pretty harrowing, as the slugspawn finds the nearest orifice and burrows into the body (for Aldric, it burrows through his right nipple).

The second thing that happens is that they are attacked on the way to Azor Khul. They use the spaceship’s vents to bypass all the doors Azor Khul has locked but are found by his Grendelspawn. Aldric wrestles with one, finally blasting it multiple times in the head with his laser pistols, and Imoaza launches a grenade (accidentally) at a group of others, blasting apart the vents and dropping them outside of and beneath the ship (saved by Imoaza’s fly spell), where the third important thing happens.

For here, beneath the ship, is the source of Azor Khul’s energy, the power he is pumping back into the spaceship. Here lie row upon row of tubes wherein float bodies that are very familiar to the players. They see the generals of the Red Hand, Varanthian, and the Dragons that they fought throughout their campaign. The tubes are pumping out piles of goop which then form into clones of these figures, rising up to face the players (and explaining where Azor Khul’s infinite army comes from). But before they can fight, the goop is sucked back into the tubes and the tubes all empty, shooting their contents up huge pipes into the spaceship and the spaceship comes alive above them, rumbling as it shifts in the cavern and lights begin turning on all over it.

Blackrazor goes a little nuts down here, realizing that the tubes are replicating souls. He tells Aldric that they could stay here forever, devouring this endless supply of artifical souls and growing ever more powerful. Aldric finds himself actually disturbed by the concept and for the first time a thin sliver of doubt crosses his mind as to whether he wishes to remain attached to Blackrazor. The blade becomes completely incensed when the tubes shoot their energy into the ship above them, screaming out that they are stealing his souls!

Only one of the bodies is outside of a tube and remains behind after this, that of an eviscerated and dissected Bronze Dragon, still sickeningly alive, its brain visible and gyrating as the thing shakes in its bonds: a number of wire plugged into its remains that feed up to the ship. The poor creature stirs when it sees that Aldric carries the Rod of Storms, for this is the same dragon who gave that rod to Karina what seems like years ago (but was actually about a month or two). The Dragon desperately relays a message: “The trade I made you... the time for you to get the treasure I promised has come... you must retrieve it now before it is too late! The winged one has already learned the secrets of the crystals. Soon he will be unstoppable.”

Before the Dragon can say more a massive power surge pulls his life force from him and up through the wires into the ship. The cavern begins to collapse and Imoaza uses her fly spell again to lift them up and up and up, past an airlock and back into the ship, rising up through its innards towards...

... towards the Starspawn.

The massive beast lies dormant inside a huge glass tank. The wires and plugs that extend inside the tank are sparking with energy, yet the creature does not move. Carrick grimaces as he sees the beast and for the first time he recalls dying at its hands.

But the players rise past it, onto a bridge that leads into the control room. The doors open with the blue stone rectangle that Aldric still carries and they come into a long room filled with desks and computers and other equipment that they do not recognize the purpose of. And there, at the far end of the room, standing before a huge wall of glass that looks out onto a dark cavern, stands Azor Khul.

The muscular Dragonborn turns as they enter and he snarls. “Too late,” he says, and slams his hand down on a button on the console nearest him. The ship rumbles and the cavern outside the glass speeds past them as the ship tears through the underground, bursts from out of the earth and heads up and up and up.

Until they all see they have left their world behind and entered the big big sky. They are in space.

“Now, we can talk,” Azor Khul says.

Next time, the Final Fight. At least, the Final Fight of this world.