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grimm-rider · 6 months

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Entry 27

Before I get into more recent events, a few more important things I missed in my last entry. Because a hell of a lot’s happened.

After we killed the Crone Queen in the library and another that had Numerian missiles, Elvanna’s new threat rather than our own families was to Nadya’s family. So we hurried to the little village where we’d left them and joined Nadya in a fight against another Crone Queen and her minions. In which Nadya’s kids threw dung on the winter witches from hiding while we rained death from above on the rooftops. It was great. Now Nadya’s back and helping with the resistance, and her kids have made a little spy network. Because no one ever suspects the children. This was entirely the kids’ idea, by the way. We didn’t just decide to send kids out to gather intel for us. But they’re quite good at it.

After saving Nadya’s family we met with the Heralds of Summer’s Dawn, who judged Peanut, and with Nestian’s help decided to forgive him for the mistakes he’d made in disbanding them. Now they’re going to help us too. Although they revealed to us that a circus was coming to town run by a man from Keisuke’s universe. Someone apparently deeply connected to Nestian’s family, and in a very bad way. He would have to be stopped, because his existence in this world was throwing all of the followers of Gozra’s powers into chaos.

After that is when we saved Greta, and then I spoke to Keisuke in the Nonagon.

Then we killed a Crone Queen at the theatre, saved a bunch of people, and got the horde of a dragon. This was just before we met the plant man and sprung Cesseer from jail. This is also where I lost Roscoe and took control of a mouthy piece of shit demilich I’ve been calling Walter. Walter is currently in time out in my bag of holding because he wasn’t very discerning with where he aimed his Wail of the Banshee in combat and he hit Greta. And then he said she shouldn’t have been in the way. So he’s staying in the bag until further notice. Possibly forever. I might look into how to destroy demiliches and enlist Edeya’s help to destroy him (I suspect it will involve positive energy). We’ll see how spiteful I’m feeling in a few days.

Anyways before Walter fucked up and got himself banned from experiencing anything but the void of the Bag of Holding, I asked him how one becomes a lich. Because it seemed like the most straightforward way for a necromancer to gain immortality at the time. The demilich told me that the final step in the ritual is usually some form of sacrifice. And it’s generally crossing a line so horrible there’s no going back.

I’ve never been one to shy away from lines, so this didn’t deter me from looking into it further later. But we’ll get to that.

I made a Demiplane, for our group’s privacy and safety, and also for my own personal use in the future. It is called Grimm Labyrinthus. It’s not so intricate magically as the Nonagon—not being set up on top of the Eon Pit and all—but I still think I’ve made a rather clever wonder all the same. I won’t be committing its secrets to paper. But I will say the Labyrinth part in the name is quite literal if you don’t know where you are meant to go within it.

After we finished the jailbreak and got a wonderful rest in my new home, we decided to deal with the nasty little clown infestation in town. It was time to shut down the circus that had apparently haunted Nestian’s family for two generations.

We fought through various twisted fey while Jairess channeled Gozreh, determining whether they would agree with Nestian’s balance or the ringmaster’s chaos in nature.

Nestian came out victorious. In a final desperate moment the ringmaster tried to cheat. Jairess stopped him by summoning the spirit of a powerful archdruid from the past.

It was Nestian’s father.

Nestian and his father put an end of whatever this dark chapter of their family history was.

I don’t really get what happened next, but from how Nestian and Peanut talked, it sounds like Nestian got a chance to talk to his father afterwards. His expression is hard to read generally, but he definitely looked happy after that.

…

Miracle can do a lot of things. Bringing back the dead without a body should be entirely within the realm of possibility. I don’t know if him being from another universe might make things more difficult, but…

Keisuke killed him. I could undo it.

Nestian deserves to have his entire family.

Honestly Aenland does, too. But I feel more cautious about broaching that topic given how sensitive the subject is for him. Maybe just healing his mother, though…?

If I could do it, why shouldn’t I?

But that’s for later. Elvanna is already threatening to kill our families. Probably better not to give her more targets for the time being.

And that about catches us up. To last night, when I wrote my previous journal entry.

See, after the circus was done with, I still had two uses of Miracle left for the day. So I decided to make use of them. I used them both to cast the spell Legend Lore. Once on an Iron Flask we’d found, to discover what creature was held within it. And once on myself. To learn once and for all what my path to lichdom was.

The spirits I called on for Legend Lore whispered to me, and I saw a vision.

I was in the House of Murder. It was me, but changed. It was me, but so beautiful, and so powerful. I can still see it in my mind’s eye and my heart aches that it will never be a reality.

Because next to me was a second figure. Their visage changed, flickering between familiar faces. Aenland, Nestian, Edeya…Greta…

No matter which face the figure wore, it was slumped before me. With a knife in their back. Killed at their height, their life cut short during their crowning achievement.

That is the line.

I could laugh if I didn’t just want to fucking break something.

The line that was staring me in the face this entire time. The one I said even months ago I wasn’t strong enough to cross. And my resolve has only weakened since then.

This is a cruel joke. The height of power that a necromancer can get, just out of reach. I can see it. It would be so easy to reach out and take it. To make that beautiful vision a reality.

And yet it would not be easy at all. It would be torturous. I would sooner cut out my own heart than harm Greta. And even if I had the resolve to kill one of the others…I would still lose her. She cares about the others, just as I do. If I killed one of them for power, I wouldn’t lose just one of them. I would lose all of them. There would be no forgiveness or understanding for that betrayal. Nor should there be.

So the only way to gain the one thing I need to remain outside of the Boneyard’s grasp would lose me everything else. What would be the point of beauty and power and immortality if I’m alone?

Fuck. These assholes really have changed me. I don’t even know when it happened. When did I quit only relying on myself—only trusting myself—and start putting them before even my own ambitions? I can’t pinpoint a single moment, a flip of the switch between not caring and caring. Somewhere the gradient smeared, with such subtly it’s hard to say when it changed from black to grey, and my priorities shifted from gaining the things I want, to protecting what I already have—those in my circle who somehow became precious to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I still want power and immortality. I’ll just have to find a way that doesn’t involve sacrificing my companions. Others have found the secrets of immortality before me. And I’m going to get mythic power one way or another. So…it should be possible. It must be possible.

It just won’t be as easy as a single death at the right time and place.

It’s almost enough to make me want to wish my damn emotions away, so I could reach for what I want unimpeded. But then I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my final reward. Power and immortality and no ability to feel pride in making it that far, no ability to feel joy in having bested Pharasma’s game of life and death…it would be a hollow victory, just as pointless in the end as ending up alone with my emotions intact would be.

Is that it, then? Is that the joke Pharasma’s played on the world? Either die and face her judgement, or get an empty self-defeating victory in immortality?

That can’t be right. I refuse to believe that’s right. There must be a way to gain immortality that doesn’t defeat the purpose. Maybe not the way Baba Yaga gained it, maybe not lichdom, but that power has to be out there somewhere.

Mythic power will be my first step towards it. Maybe it will even be my key to unlocking it.

Anyways. I’ve waxed poetic about how fucking awful the universe is for snatching away the thing I want most enough, I think.

I tried to take my mind off it by making a little personal trek to Abbadon to fetch Roscoe. Then I returned to the clocktower and slept off my sour mood. With Greta there. She didn’t even have to ask what was wrong. She just acknowledged that something *was* wrong, then shifted into her wolf form and curled up with me. It helped. Having her there. It hurt, like a dagger through my own heart. But it also helped. Her presence reaffirmed that I didn’t want to lose her—not for anything.

The next day we had a surprise visit from Ratibor, our good old mortal incarnation of Kostchtchie. He told us that Baba Yaga gave him something to give to Jadrenka—it was a note for 2 weeks paid time off. A bit perplexing, but given that Baba Yaga works about fifteen steps ahead of the rest of us I’m sure it’ll make sense when the time comes.

Seeing as Baba Yaga was clearly telling us where to go next, we put our current plans on hold (a trip to the bathhouse to kill the Crone Queen shacked up there), and instead teleported back to Ioberia. For the first time in 4000 years, technically.

We had one other detour first, though. To the roof of the clocktower, because we heard Wuso scream, and had a second surprise visit for the day—from Calistria herself.

I forgot to mention when I talked about the theatre. Calistria was in the audience, in disguise. Still absolutely radiating sexual energy. Hottest god in the pantheon indeed.

This time she was not disguised. She appeared before Wuso in all her glory.

And she stripped Wuso of her power, before telling the rest of us that this was the second of three times we’d be meeting. Then the elven goddess disappeared, leaving Wuso at the edge of the clocktower, absolutely shattered.

The others tried to comfort her. I said nothing. I had no words of comfort to give. They all tried to reassure her that it would be ok, or that maybe this was just a test.

I wanted to say that sometimes gods are fickle. Gods are so much more powerful than us, that there is no way they see the world the way that we do. There is no way to know what Wuso did that made Calistria do this. It could be any little thing. It could be nothing at all. When you have power, the powerless are your toys to play with.

But the others were trying to hard to draw her back from the edge. So I said nothing.

Before Calistria had told us before she left that we should take Wuso to Ioberia with her. Because she would need a distraction from ‘a bad breakup’.

The others interpreted this as a test for Wuso, something she would have to face to get her powers back. Maybe it is. Calistria must have said it for a reason. Or maybe Wuso has a destiny not tied to Calistria, and she is setting her on that path—whether she likes it or not.

Aenland asked Wuso if that was what *she* wanted to do—regardless of what Calistria said. Wuso agreed, she wanted to come with us. So we teleported, once again, to Ioberia.

We appeared on top of the Maiden Statue, and immediately met a strange gun wielding man with red tinted glasses, who killed the riddle tree when it sent berserk after he answered the stupid riddle we’ve heard four times now correctly. It was going to eat Aenland, who had climbed into its mouth—again. Not that Aenland was likely in any danger, that tree was maybe dangerous when we came here 4000 years ago, but we have grown in power exponentially since then.

The fact this man answered the riddle, however, also implies he knew the previous Black Rider. By name, not just by title.

He introduced himself as Indrid Cold. The man Keisuke had warned me about. The one he’d suggested I kill on sight. I did not do as he suggested—primarily because this man had a sense of power about him that gave me reason to pause. I have the distinct feeling I would not be capable of killing Indrid Cold alone—nor do I think my companions would be willing to take up arms against him on Keisuke’s behalf.

So instead I simply kept my guard up, incase the man had any ill-intent. He claimed that he wanted to come with us into Artrosa because it had certain defenses that would target the strongest in the party with their worst memories. He’d seen visions of the worst ways this could go wrong. So he wished to join us so that it would specifically target him and none of us by default as he without a hint of uncertainty said he was the most powerful one here.

Aenland claimed if we’d gone in alone we all knew it would target him. I am in severe disagreement on that matter. And if it had pulled from my memories, there was as much chance as not that it could pull something I don’t even remember, so it wouldn’t be particularly personal.

Regardless, there was little choice but to agree to let this man come with us.

As we prepared to enter Artrosa for the fourth time, Indrid pulled me aside. He said that he’d seen—with whatever future sight he has—that I did not trust him due to Keisuke’s warnings in most possible futures. He said he would not try to convince me with words, since I knew better than most how words can be twisted to one’s own benefit. Instead he would let his actions speak for him.

I told him that was all fine and good, but until then he would have to forgive me if I was going to be cautious until he had sufficiently proven himself trustworthy. He agreed that he expected no less.

So long as we have an understanding.

After that we delved into Artrosa proper. As we reached the bottom of the stairs, Indrid seemed rather offput. He said something was wrong. The room we entered was not what he’d seen in his visions.

We had entered a familiar room with a gazebo in the center. Many spectral figures of Jadrenka as the mother, maiden, and crone stood to the sides. And under the gazebo, just as we’d first met her, bull and all, was Jadrenka.

The bull was not disguised a gorgon waiting to kill us this time at least.

We approached, and spoke to Jadrenka. Radibor almost barreled her over in a hug. He told her he had something for her, but she said to wait until the end to give it to her, as the events to unfold might affect things.

Apparently being back here had returned Jadrenka’s memories. At least, the ones she hadn’t already been getting back on her own. She had taken up the position of warden again. Because Artrosa needed a warden, and her mother was dead. She thanked us for not making her warden so many years before—she was aware of how poorly that would have gone. But she believed that now she had a way around the things that had deteriorated her mental state the first time around.

Baba Yaga made the rules, and Baba Yaga was indisposed at the moment. Which meant she had time to make some new rules.

Risky business. But I feel like if she plays her cards right Baba Yaga will respect the hustle. It’s all about doing it in a way that impresses her, instead of insulting her.

For now, however, she was the warden, and we needed to get into the Eon Pit, so that meant she needed to test us. She told us she’d love to bend the rules and just let us through, but given that bending the rules in the past was part of what had made things go bad the first time around, she wasn’t going to play that game again, even to help us kill a Crone Queen who was doing a fucked up ritual in the Eon Pit.

So she split us into two groups. Ratibor would look after Wuso and face a trial through one passage, while the rest of us faced a different trial based on Indrid’s memories through a different passage.

We entered the door with Indrid’s visage on it.

The first place we appeared was at a bridge. A young Indrid—just a teen at most—was running to the bridge, yelling for the people to get away, they were in danger.

He was too late.

The bridge collapsed, and dozens of people fell with it. The air of death was palpable.

Two men in clergy robes turned to him. They had faces very much like the adult Indrid we have met, sans the glasses.

One of the men accused him of causing this. The child tried to argue that he’d merely seen it, but the man only accused him more violently of being a blight who brings misfortune. The people around him were forming into a mob, and they began to chase the child. Into the woods. Into the dark.

Heartless. They were going to string up a child for trying to warn them of danger. If this weren’t just a memory, I would kill them myself. Show them what a real monster looks like as they die in agony.

Instead, the bridge was completely consumed by a storm of darkness. I recognized a dangerous haunt, which if allowed to grow would begin trying to feed off the souls of any of my companions not warded by my Oracle’s Vessel. And myself and those who were warded would still be struck by bolts of lightning, so not even we were truly safe from it.

This was too dangerous to not take seriously. So I called on my most powerful magic, using a miracle to turn my negative energy positive for just long enough to cast a Mass Cure Critical Wounds.

It burned. It burned like reaching into the sun. Like the fires of the Hells. From my finger tips up to my elbows, with how powerful the positive energy had been. But it got the job done. The storm visibly weakened. I shouted to Edeya that we needed positive energy—and not Heal, because it would be immune to that. Unfortunately, given the power of that particular spell.

Edeya dropped a healing spell on it, and then I felt some of the power of the Black Rider revitalize me as Aenland sent me some of his power—allowing me the split second I needed to cast another miracle and hit the storm a second time with even more positive energy. Everything burned. I could barely feel my hands. But the storm burned with me.

Indrid finished it off with a healing spell of his own. Which seemed fitting, I suppose.

The scene faded back to the regular collapsed bridge. The two clergymen walked away, back towards a nearby town. And I got the sense that the child had escaped his pursuers.

After, we walked down the same path the two men had walked. Time seemed to speed up. Seasons passed. Plants began to wither. Strange, twisted fruit grew from the trees. The town grew poor—except for the church, which grew opulent.

We found ourselves at the church door. There was an attack. Indrid had returned to reap his vengeance.

We threw open the door.

Inside were angels made of roiling magma, human clergy, and Indrid’s brother. The head of the clergy, wearing his weight in gold while those in the village starved.

Jadrenka warned us that this would not be the fight as Indrid truly remembered it—it was warped by his feelings, by how he perceived the events.

We fought. Indrid shot his brother with enough bullets to fell any normal man—but he was clearly no normal man this time. His wounds were healing rapidly.

Then a massive hammer smashed through the stained glass behind him, and a colossal angelic being slugged Aenland with it.

He’s making a habit out of this.

One of the clergy tried to heal Indrid’s brother, but Nevra interrupted his spell with a well-placed spear swing. Cesseer did the same to one of the angels.

A member of the clergy stepped away from Nevra to avoid her spear, and cast Implosion on Indrid. Much like when I boneshatter something to death and just crunch all the bones into each other, his body tried to fold into itself. It looked painful.

What a shame.

I decided to clear out some of the trash and give my companions some breathing room to deal with the actual threats. One Wail of the Banshee later: all of the clergy and most of the angels were dead. Talsune finished off another angel that was attacking Roscoe (I did not just get him back to have him be destroyed by a gods-damned angel, thank you very much).

Then Roscoe took four shots at the massive angelic being—and actually managed to paralyze it. Clearly getting a little training on his own in Abbadon just killing hordes of Daemons non-stop did him some good.

I missed Roscoe. Baykoks are the best undead pets. I think I will find a way to get more and guard Grimm Labyrinthus with them. Maybe Baba Yaga will let me poach some from the fortress in the Dancing Hut…

A thought for another day.

Aenland executed Indrid’s brother—who was apparently healing so fast because he was a gods-damned Void Yai Oni.

And I finished off the massive angelic being, burning it with Firestorm, then forcing it to its knees with Boneshaker, the massive immortal creature kneeling before us—as it should—until its spine snapped and it fell limp.

The memory went back to play out how things had actually happened. Indrid shot the head of the clergy—not dead, just incapacitated. Then he strung a noose around his neck, and threw him out the window. Both to kill him and to show the town that the tyrant was dead.

He expected accolades. He expected the town to finally not see him as a monster. His brother had been at the heart of all their problems, surly they would be grateful for his demise.

Instead, when he looked out the window, the people he saw below were more terrified than ever.

Backing away from the window, Indrid transformed. Revealing that he is some sort of werebat. Which explains the clicking noises he makes, before shooting and just at regular intervals when moving about. It seems to be to make up for his apparent lack of sight—he must use echolocation.

He fled, leaving the town behind. For good this time, I suspect.

I’ve seen more about Indrid now, and yet I understand him less, I think. He went and got his revenge on the man who caused much of his grief, but he didn’t feel satisfied. He felt worse. He wanted the people in the town to accept him, even though it was the people in the town who also treated him like a monster. If it were me, I’d have wanted to burn the entire town to the ground, not just the church. What those people think doesn’t matter. But what they did was vile and deserves some recompense.

But Indrid doesn’t seem to think so, even though he’s the one who experienced it first-hand. He doesn’t seem to think the revenge was worth it, even if it was deserved. I don’t understand that thought process. Not at all. Even if those people were ungrateful, he removed a parasite from their town.

The next memory didn’t shed any more light on things. It was a puzzle room. Inside was a strange android man who may or may not have been a figment of Indrid’s memories. The way he answered when Indrid asked was…questionable. It felt like there was more to him that met the eye. But it was impossible to puzzle out what from the things he said and the way he acted. It felt like he was toying with us. Like this was just an amusing pastime for him.

Except when I said something about having ripped out a few people’s hearts. That seemed to make him drop the façade for a moment. It seemed he didn’t like that particular comment. Not like it’s been anyone who didn’t deserve it. I’m not going to start feeling bad for ripping out Rasputin’s heart anytime soon.

Anyways, we worked out the puzzles. Not always in the intended manner (I used my Spirit Walk ability to go through the wall of a puzzle we were apparently meant to cast Silence on to make a painting disappear. But none of us had Silence, and we didn’t know this Ulong fellow would be willing to cast spells on our behalf until after the fact.)

The final door opened, and Ulong gave Indrid a small slip of paper before disappearing. I have no idea what that was about. It certainly gave no further insight into this Mr. Cold.

With all the important memories witnessed, Jadrenka asked Indrid, essentially, who he was. Indrid basically said he was just a little werebat trying to make his way in the world, and help people along the way.

So he’s like Nestian. Just a person who lives life as it comes to them and helps people as he sees they need help. Not striving for some greater ambition. Not seeking anything. Just living life.

I don’t know how anyone can live like that. It feels so…stagnant. It sounds like just…living, without a purpose. I don’t get how people can just exist, and not reach, and strive, and try to grow and become more. How do they not get bored just living? Just taking what life throws at them and helping people as they see people who need help.

It sounds awful.

I understand this Indrid Cold less now that I have seen his memories than I did when he was merely a mystery. At the very least, I think the only reason he’s a threat to Keisuke is the same reason Nestian would be. Because Keisuke is not a good person, and he does harm where it will benefit him, and they are both people who protect others.

I’m under no illusions about the sort of person Keisuke is. I’m not some blind fool who thinks there’s some good hidden inside him that my friends could nurture out if they just tried.

The thing is…if the others hadn’t met me when they did, and we met in Whitethrone instead of them meeting Keisuke there, they would have reacted to me back then exactly how they had Keisuke. They only care about me now because they got to know me. They only overlook some of places where I don’t even try to match my morals with theirs because we have known each other for so long, and they trust me. As I trust them.

If they had met me at any other time, they would have tried to kill me. No question in my mind, that is how it would have happened.

And so…I have difficulty feeling particularly enthusiastic about turning my magic against Keisuke. I see who I was—or who I could have been, perhaps. I see the others turning their blades on me. Perhaps it even feels like a stepping stone. If they go through with killing Keisuke, will they quit overlooking some of the things they’ve overlooked from me for so long, and start insisting I conform to their morals? Writing it, it sounds like paranoia. But it feels like a reality.

Anyways…anyways.

Jadrenka returned us from the illusory past. Now we found ourselves in the chamber Indrid has originally seen in his vision, the one he’d been expecting us to find when we first entered Artrosa.

Jadrenka would open the way to the Eon Pit, so that we could slay another Crone Queen, stop whatever ritual they were conducting, and fix the Nonagon.

When our preparations were complete, we followed Jadrenka through the doors that stood before us.

We followed her through halls that showed so many images of many Jadrenkas, leading many groups. Over and over a thousand times over. As with many things in the Eon Pit, it was hard to look at. And True Seeing didn’t make it any better—it was reality, not an illusion.

At last we made it to the end of the tunnel, and found a Crone Queen and her Winter Witches upon a giant floating snowflake. The ritual she was preforming was clearly a modified variation of the one Jadrenka herself had preformed last time we were here.

The one she’d been using to summon Kostchtchie.

The Crone Queen mocked us that we were too late.

In a rip through the fabric of reality, an emaciated white dragon’s claw reached through into the Eon Pit. It grabbed the Crone Queen…and crushed her in a single swift, violent movement.

The grotesque dragon stepped through, followed by familiar centaurs. And another far-too familiar form.

Kostchtchie, in the flesh. The Demon Lord of Frost Giants.

He saw us and bellowed in rage.

It would seem 4000 years had not dulled his memories—or his hatred.

He was not bound on the opposite end of a ritual this time. This time the fight was real. We were facing down the Demon Lord Kostchtchie in earnest.

#pathfinder #reign of winter #journal entry

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