Frei's Memories: Day 3 (part 2)

Day 3 (part 2):

We awoke outside the game, but not in a nice place.  I hid in the priest's clothes like a coward; I was just sure something unfriendly was going to eat me.

Nebel:
All that remains of El's once great capitol drifts asunder in this place near the great rift.  Huge stone buildings drift and collide in a violet haze called Nebel.  I have no idea what happened here suffice to say that El hasn't been heard from since the war that destroyed his realm. As with other places near the rift or the edges of the mortal world, there is little gravity---only a weak force pulling toward whatever large stone happens to be near.  A weak cycle of day and night determine just how hazardous Nebel is.  During the day, the largest danger is getting lost in the haze and pummeled to death by the drifting stones. Night, however, is deadly.  Piranha-like bats swarm though the area, killing anyone foolish enough to be caught in the open and evil spirits suck the life from those who venture into the intact structures for shelter from the duskriders.

I was quite dismayed; Nebel is on the wrong side of the rift!  I was deeply worried, unless my team reached Victor in Zerthadium soon, something awful might happen to my family.  I didn't say much about it to my team.  They didn't need to worry about it.  Immediate survival was of greater concern.  We began to search for anything to help us. 

Nebel Cathedral:

We explored a ancient cathedral full of broken, stained glass.  The place must have been magnificent in it's heyday, but it was cold and lifeless when we found it.  The basement held an unpleasant surprise.  We discovered a morbidly crafted ossuary, complete with a study with chair and desk made of bones.  Shadows lurked in every corner, skittering away from our lights, but stalking us as we progressed.  We found a dangerous looking chest of bones deep withing the catacombs.  It nearly killed us when we touched it.  An undead book made of stitched flesh appeared on the desk and we offered it some of our life energy to reveal its secrets.

We used some of our essentia (distilled soul stuff) to form a magic circle around the chest and we opened it.  In response, a very angry wraith emerged and gave us the toughest fight, yet.  We made the very angry wraith very very dead.  It was comforting to know that we retained the powers we had back in the game.  We found an old signet ring, a land deed, and a load of essentia.  We decided to take our gains out of the cathedral without the necromantic grymoir; it was just too dangerous to carry around.

It seems to me that El's kingdom must have rotted right out from underneath him.  I have no idea why, though.  I doubt anyone knows.

Nebel Tower:

On a whim, the mystic decided to take advantage of the strange gravity and walk around to the underside of the cathedral.  He returned with an obviously magical oil lamp.  I had a bad feeling about it (it's hard to be brave when you're a small lizard), so we decided not to examine it until we reached safety.

Given the gravity, we easily ascended a large tower.  What we found there, we won't so easily forget.  The place was barricaded and filled with burnt bones.  It looked like a large number of people and been trapped and burned to death.  We witnessed a ghost of a woman leaping to her death.  More alarming, the gruesome scene seemed to melt away, replaced by visions of the tower at an earlier time.  We were then confronted by a ghost, who didn't seem to know she was a ghost, claiming her mother had jumped out of the tower a while ago.  She was happy to have us around and asked us to help her leave.  When the apparition tried to leave, she vanished and the whole scene repeated itself.  We decided to leave before we lost our sanity.  I still wonder what happened here and if there is anything we can do about it.

We didn't have much time; night was falling and the duskriders were swarming.  We frantically made our way across a debris field and into a forest of dark, dead trees.  There, a portal sucked some of our life energy in exchange for passage elsewhere.


What's With the Soul Sucking?:
It turns out the souls of mortals who have been though the Aons' game (known as the Returned) are supercharged.  The Returned can donate a portion of their life force in place of using essentia to activate magic items.  They are especially effective at opening portals to other worlds.  Fortunately for the Returned, their souls can regenerate within a day's time.