A Moment Extended

A Moment Extended
Date	7/4/25
Storyteller	Sushi
Tier	Master
Player Characters	Vliegen the Windborne, Vara, Dar, Isaac Davenport, Chrysanthemum Lavandula Orchidaceae Delphinium Helianthus
Rewards	300 xp, soaring (Vliegen, dar), spellwatch (Chrys, Vara), invisibility (greater) (Isaac)
Result	Success (more or less)
Author	Vliegen
Downtime	1

Associates look into suicides, find a suicide demon.

Log

So we all got together and went to the house of this "mentalist" person, I think that's a type of wizard? And found four people, young adults probably right around 20 if I had to guess? Anyway three were asleep, put to sleep by the mentalist, and one was unfortunately already dead. They were trying to take their own lives for some reason and we needed to figure out why. Doctor mentalist said they were poisoned in some way, but the poison was treated and shouldn't be causing this anyway. Their brains were basically on pause, and it was up to us to get in there and root around 'til we figure out what's making them wanna die so bad. While we prepare for this, we take a look at each of the bodies. The three living were a pale-skinned blonde human girl, a black haired orc guy, and a pale-skinned blond guy with a beard. Crazy beard for a guy right around 20 though, I gotta say.

Anyway the dead body was another pale blonde girl, though she looked a bit younger than the rest. This was Maelle, she had been coming back into town from a long trip when all this happened. Isaac and Dar figured out something mental killed her, not a poison, that's why there's no marks or anything either. The mentalist hands us a thread and tells us to focus on it in the mind place if we wanna escape. With that we head in, and Dar finally informs us that actually, Maelle looked to have been dead for weeks. Not sure why that was excluded from the previous discussion, but we're winging it from there. Isaac determines shape-changing magic might be at play then, something to make her look more alive than she actually was. Little late to check on that though.

Anywho, blacked-out door, two shut doors, and an open door are what we see in front of us. Naturally, we hit up the open door first since that's clearly the best invitation we're gonna get. Past the door it's pretty cold and bright, and there's a hazy-looking person who disappeared when we got close. Looked kinda like Maelle, which was concerning to say the least. I also noticed the air and the snow were more like bugs than what they looked like, and that seemed to really bother some of the people there to think about. Anyway we followed some tracks and found the human guy on the ground, and he was being held by some giant ice lobster thing. Some four-armed ice bear thing tried attacking us outta nowhere too, and its skin really liked stretching out to bite you when it wasn't trying to run us over. The lobster also used a lot of icy breath attacks that froze people in place, but I've mastered the art of wind flourishes to protect myself. The bear died pretty quick when we surrounded it, and after I threw Vara at the lobster, who helped us confirm it has enough of a grip to put a man to sleep, we killed that too. While some people patched themselves up, Chrys went to check up on the guy, whose name was Marv. I was there too, but I'm not gonna pretend like I actually helped talk him outta his whole "I wanna die, leave me here" spiel, that was all Chrysanthemum. From him we learned Maelle said some real hurtful stuff when she got back from the trip, which wasn't like her at all. At this point we're definitely thinking this is some sorta posthumous possession or something.

Getting Marv out the door, he disappeared and so did the snowy land. The door was now blacked-out, which confirmed the blacked-out doors were for people who weren't here anymore. So that dead one had to be Maelle's, then. We went through one of the closed doors next, and the darkness inside basically grabbed us and forced us in as if we weren't going anyway. We all got split up in complete darkness, with some voices telling us to stay in the dark and give up or something. Me and Isaac were the only ones put together, and as I sparked up a torch we saw Maelle in the same room as us. She really didn't want us leaving, but we did the smart thing as she started turning into a weird shadow monster Isaac called an Ankou, and got the nearest door open to start running. Apparently they make shadow clones or something, because when we turned and started beating on the one chasing us it died pretty quick. We met up with everyone else, who had also been getting chased by Ankou, in the middle place where that orc guy named Jacque was. Guy was getting held by an Ankou we couldn't really interact with, but as Chrys killed her problem child we could see it start fading that one more and more outta existence. When Dar finally arrived last, we killed that one and freed Jacque! Had to get him convinced to leave as well, but luckily having a buddy already outta there and free probably helped some.

Last door we went through took us to a marketplace, and everyone was concealed. Each one that got revealed was Maelle again, and she kept saying mean stuff about us, and eventually about "That weird girl in the corner" or something. Also Dar and Catpanion kept killing them all, I guess the insults were gettin' to him or something. Anyway we found the other blonde girl, Ellie her name was, and she was super insecure about basically everything. Based on all the insults, mostly her appearance I guess? She didn't like Catpanion getting too close, and started going crazy with some scissors. Vara insulted one of the super popular Maelles in the market behind us, and she turned into this 4-armed sword wielding crazy lady. Apparently a suicide demon! We needed to kill that shit right away, but Ellie for some reason was real hell-bent on asking people if she was pretty or not, and shanking people with scissors. Don't tell her I said this because I think it might upset her real bad, but I think she has to work on those insecurities if they lead to you stabbing people. Everyone else was just sad and wanted to die or whatever, she nearly gutted Catpanion just for getting close.

Anyway the rest of the job's kinda blur because while we were beating on the suicide lady she hit me with a curse. Couldn't understand anybody and everything just sounded pretty insulting, I really didn't know what was real or not so I couldn't exactly trust anyone too far. Once we got outta the dream and everything someone got me to the Leatherworks shop to get that fixed thankfully, but more importantly everyone's alive! Well, the three we could save anyway. From what I heard the gang basically just knocked Ellie out and dragged her outta the place instead of talking to her, so I dunno if that's gonna cause long-term problems or not, but it's not my problem because I was literally cursed at the time. Good luck to the victims!