Chapter 4 - Session 7

Three Ages Await

Events and Actions

Leaving Salter and the still-recovering Leela behind to guard the boat, the party roped themselves together and pushed on into the mist toward its source. The disorientation only worsened as they went, with individual members repeatedly drifting off course despite the rope; Mani took the lead, following an increasingly confident pull from his medallion and singing a sea shanty to keep the others oriented on his position, while — at Knick Nab's suggestion — the group settled on calling out their names in turn so anyone who fell silent could be hauled back into line. Marking a trail proved harder than expected once they left open sand — dragging a branch worked there, but further in they switched to cutting notches into trunks and stacking stones instead. Despite the precautions, Mani wandered directly beneath a finger-fruit tree and was bitten before anyone could react; his armor absorbed most of the blow, and the party fell back to regroup.

Wary of a repeat, Cosimo spent several minutes methodically testing another tree, conjuring an illusory figure he dubbed Handsome Gulliver Gold and sending it to walk, taunt, and even mock-duel beneath the branches while he layered on false taste, smell, and finally the heat of a lit torch, one sense at a time — none of it drew a reaction. Only when a rolled rock struck the base of the tree did one of its fruit bunches visibly flinch, and when Noddy lassoed a fruit with his enchanted rope and hauled on it, the whole bunch fought back before the fruit finally tore free. The party concluded the trees hunt by vibration and touch alone — sight, sound, smell, and taste meant nothing to them — though the effort the tree put into defending its fruit left some of the party uneasy about whether they had just fought over a meal from something that could think.

They pushed on, correcting course again and again — at one point Mani had to shake Werner back to his senses after he drifted off entirely. Voices called from ahead in the mist, and three small figures resolved briefly at the edge of sight before drawing back; Mani hailed them with a boisterous "stand and deliver," and when that drew nothing, Batu Batu tried an Islander greeting of his own, only for a curt rebuff to come back through his translation: "turn about, do not approach." As they pushed on through a denser stand of finger-fruit, Mani broke into an improvised song for the trees themselves — leafy giants with hungry roots, he sang, promising they were just passing through and no one's supper. Further along, cryptic voices called again from deeper in the mist, warning the party to turn back or "three ages await." Batu Batu, translating brokenly, made out only fragments — sorrow, danger, challenge — but the party pressed on regardless.

Following the pull a while longer, the party emerged into a clearing at the heart of the mist: a shallow pool ringed by the last dry ground, a black stone totem rising from its center, and several small rivers issuing from the water around it. On the far side of the pool waited the three pygmy-like figures — "The Three" — who spoke only in short, often contradictory phrases and repeatedly branded the party "bad people" despite their protests. Batu Batu translated as best he could while Mani worked around the pool's edge to close the distance and spoke for the party, and Cosimo conjured an illusory map to explain themselves: the black stone, the mist-shrouded island, their boat's journey up the river, and finally a priest of the Divinity of Two arriving with a diad to threaten the totem. The Three's answers stayed fragmented and evasive, but patterns emerged — they seemed to speak from different vantage points in time, one favoring "not yet," another "been there," and the third undercutting both.

Testing whether the totem could be used for travel, Riu teleported directly onto the stone with a minor leaving spell, then attempted a far larger jump — picturing all the totems as connected, fingers of one buried hand reaching out through the earth, and trying to translate himself along that connection all the way to the totem buried beneath Blackstone Peak on Totem Isle, in the Channel Islands — and failed badly enough that The Three simply told him "no." Mani took a running leap across the pool to join him, landing in an undignified half-dive that left him soaked to the boots, and once there attuned to the stone with both hands pressed against it, confirming the totem's purpose was travel; reaching further out, he sensed the pull of another totem entirely: far across the sea to the east, someplace hot and volcanic, out past the Sands in the region known as The Glasslands. The Three made clear this distant one was not the one under threat — the totem that mattered now was "close," one the enemy had not yet found, though The Three already knew exactly where it was.

Pressed on the medallions, The Three confirmed they were shaped by a convergence of the Divinity of Two and "the old ones" — the elves — under the involvement of what they called "the eight," the first the party had heard of any powers beyond the Two Gods. Knick Nab recounted where he'd found his own medallion — on a body in the deepest dungeon of the Church of the Two, someone he'd taken for a heretic — and The Three confirmed the Church had a hand in placing it there, though "not only" the Church had a hand in making it. Pressed on whether the medallions were a boon or a bane, The Three insisted the answer was neither: a tool, and properly a single item of which each of the party wore a linked copy, "because the enemies are many." Asked whether the Stone Men's own city might hold useful knowledge, one of The Three blurted "sky," as if naming one of the eight outright — confirming that the towering stone structure the Stone Men are building to escape to the sky, the object of their own desperate faith, is bound up with one of the very powers the party's own faith denied. The Three also spoke of "Navigators," sometimes called "wind witches" — people connected to a totem destroyed forty years before, who worked against the Two and could call up storms to travel through them — though none of them knew where such a person could currently be found. Turning the questioning around, Knick Nab pressed The Three on his own murky ancestry; they confirmed only that his lineage ran back beyond the mountains, tangled up with the elves, and that in some sense he had "forgotten" what he once was. Before parting, Mani wrote his name in the sand and had one of The Three sketch its own symbol in return, which he carefully copied into his notebook, intending to have it tattooed later; the two also traded gifts, Mani offering a coin and receiving a pipe in return, though when he reached out to shake hands in farewell he found they had already withdrawn out of reach. Pressed on what an "age" meant, The Three's answers suggested that destroying a totem ends one, and that losing all eight would end the world outright — though the exact reckoning left the party more confused than enlightened. With that, The Three withdrew into the mist, and the party made the return leap across the pool to rejoin the others.

Upon leaving the clearing, the party discovered that significant time had passed. The trail markers they had cut only hours before, by their own reckoning, were now faded and overgrown, barely legible where they could be found at all; when they reunited with Salter and Leela at the boat, they realized they had all physically aged by roughly two years in what felt like a single day — new stubble, a fresh mustache on Mani, tight-fitting clothes, and all. Leela's serious leg wound was completely healed, and Salter and Leela insisted they themselves had waited barely a day. Wary of dragging the boat back through the mist-shrouded swamp at night, the party made camp on the beach outside the mist and set watches until morning.

Traveling back down the now-swollen river, they found the fields where they had gathered root scorched and destroyed, the ground blackened and torn apart with nothing living left in it. Nearing the settlement, Noddy sent Pocket ahead to scout, and the seagull returned with word of stone buildings looming where the village had stood; the party disguised themselves in the same wrapped robes worn by the Stone Men and left their boat behind the cliffs, climbing up on foot rather than announcing themselves. Using a spyglass from the clifftop, they confirmed the Islander village had been replaced by a massive Northern construction project — stone buildings, bridges, and a twin-spired, still-unfinished church of the Divinity of Two built out over the river on pillars. From their vantage, they watched the local Islanders — lightly dressed, without collars or chains, but kept in line by armed minders wielding whips and spears — hauling slabs of quarried stone on rollers down toward the town; the flags and colors visible through the spyglass confirmed the guards as Northern Navy rather than Northern Army.

NPCs & Creatures

The Three: Three pygmy-like figures who guard the Totem of Water. They spoke in a cryptic, often contradictory manner, each seeming to answer from a different vantage in time — past, present, and future — though which was which never stayed consistent. They described themselves only as watchers, refused to give their true names, and possess deep knowledge of the totems, the medallions, and the "eight" powers behind them.
Batu Batu: Accompanied the party into the mist as translator, relaying the finger-fruit trees' warnings, the cryptic voices calling the party back, and the entire halting negotiation with The Three.
Salter and Leela: Left behind to guard the boat outside the mist. By their own reckoning barely a day had passed when the party returned; Leela's leg wound had fully healed in that time.
Pocket: Noddy's familiar seagull, visibly grown from the two years spent in the mist. Sent ahead on the return journey, he was the first to spot the new Northern stone buildings rising where the Islander village had stood.
Northern Navy Soldiers: Seen in the distance, whipping and driving the enslaved Islander workforce as they hauled quarried stone toward the settlement; their flags and colors identified them as Northern Navy rather than Northern Army.

Locations

The Misty Isle (Isle of Sands): An island shrouded in a magical mist that causes disorientation and accelerates the passage of time.
Totem of Water: A black stone totem located in a pool at the heart of the Misty Isle. It is the source of both the river and the time-altering mist, and its purpose, confirmed through attunement, is travel.
Islander Village (former, Isle of Sands): Now a large Northern settlement and quarry under construction, featuring a twin-spired, still-unfinished church of the Divinity of Two built out over the river on pillars.

Conflicts

The primary conflict was the surreal and disorienting journey through the magical mist and the discovery of its time-altering effects.
A finger-fruit tree bit Mani when he wandered beneath it unawares; his armor absorbed most of the damage.
A tense and cryptic social encounter with "The Three."

Learnings and Discussions

Time Dilation: The mist on the island causes time to pass much more rapidly. The party lost approximately two years in a single day.
The Totems: There are eight totems in total ("four close, four far"). The party confirmed the existence of a Totem of Water. They were warned that the next totem to be found and threatened by the Divinity of Two is one located "close" to their previous travels, and that The Three already know its location even though the enemy does not yet.
A Totem for Walls: In one final, half-answered exchange as the party made ready to leave, Mani asked whether a totem could be used to raise walls of earth. The Three's garbled reply seemed to confirm that one still is — though by whom, and where, was left entirely unclear.
A Distant Totem: Through attunement, Mani sensed a totem far across the sea to the east, somewhere hot and volcanic beyond the Sands, in a region called The Glasslands. The Three confirmed this was not the totem currently under threat.
The Eight Powers: The party learned for the first time of the existence of "Eight Powers," and that the Two Gods of the Divinity are only two of them. The medallions were created with the involvement of the Two, the elves, and all eight — The Three confirmed the Church of the Two had a hand in placing Knick Nab's medallion where he found it, but said "not only" the Church had a hand in making it. Pressed on whether the medallions were a boon or a bane, The Three called them neither, but a tool — properly a single item, of which each of the party wears a linked copy, "because the enemies are many." Asked whether the Stone Men's city held useful knowledge, one of The Three named "sky" as one of the eight — confirming that the Stone Men's tower, built to escape to the sky they worship, is unknowingly bound up with one of the eight powers.
Navigators: The Three spoke of "Navigators," sometimes called "wind witches" — people tied to a totem destroyed forty years ago, who work against the Two and can call up storms to travel through them — but could not say where any might currently be found.
Ages: Pressed on what an "age" means, The Three suggested that destroying a totem ends one, and that the destruction of all eight would end the world outright — though their answers left the party more confused than enlightened.
Knick Nab's Heritage: The Three confirmed that Knick Nab's murky ancestry runs back beyond the mountains and is tangled up with the elves, though they offered nothing more specific.
Northern Invasion: In the two years that passed, the Northern Kingdom has established a major foothold on the Isle of Sands, enslaved the local population, and begun constructing a fortified settlement and church.

Items Gained

A Pipe: Given by one of "The Three" in exchange for a coin Mani offered as a gift.

Items Lost

Time: The party lost approximately two years.