Session 10 — The Lying Room and the Loop

Area: The Beachhouse; the road out to the lighthouse; the lighthouse (locations unrecorded)

Context

The session opened at the Beachhouse with a night's rest. Percival was back at the table after two sessions away on his own business (5 and 9).

Gia and Onyx are both in play again, after being absent in session 7 — Gia asleep at the start, Onyx present for the secret the servant catches later. Liora and Nessa are both at the table.

The Door

After the rest, Percival was asked to open a door with the card he carries — the Veil, "discovers secrets of all sorts". It worked, and the door opened. This is the first record of who holds the Veil, and the first time any card other than the Maiden has been used in play. What was asked of him, and by whom, is unrecorded, as is whether the door was part of the Beachhouse.

The Room That Lies

Everything in the room behind the door was lying. What form the lying took, object by object, is unrecorded; one instance is.

A window in the room looked out on the beach, and no sound came through it. Percival tried to jump out through it. He hit it and took 3 damage. Whether the window was glass, a wall, or a picture of the beach was not established — only that the view was there, the sound was not, and it did not let him through.

Nothing was recorded about how the party left the room, or whether anything was taken from it.

Gia and the Sandcastle

They woke Gia. Percival destroyed her sandcastle. His reason, as he gave it, was that she is not focused enough on solving anything.

Out for the Lighthouse

The party set out to look for a lighthouse. Where they heard of it, and where it is meant to be, is unrecorded. See quests/the-lighthouse.md.

The Loop

On the way they were caught in some sort of loop. Getting out of it required spoiling secrets — each of them giving up something true. The secrets were spoken into a stone.

Percival whispered into the stone that he actually likes Gia, in a friendly sense.

Nessa's secret was "I killed them all."

Liora gave hers up before Gia's turn. Percival helped keep what she said secret; by the look of it he already knew it. What she said is not recorded here, and neither is whether Gia ever spoke into the stone.

Whether the loop broke, and what got them out of it, is unrecorded. See quests/the-loop.md and items/the-stone/the-stone.md.

Secret · for the DM, Percival

The Lighthouse

The party reached the lighthouse. Astor the Controlling was there to meet them — his second appearance in person, after the Sheriff's village in session 7.

He handed over a note, written in a script none of them read — an unidentified language, not one Percival knows. He read it with Comprehend Languages.

Decoded, it reads:

The light is not meant to guide the lost. It was built so that the Beneath would not be forgotten.

When the sea takes the shore, seek what remains. When the flame goes dark, follow the one who still shines. When the door has no handle, offer what you carry.

Only those who surrender the gift may enter the place where the First Ones fell.

Astor said nothing recorded beyond handing it over. Whether he wrote it, found it, or is passing it on for someone else is unrecorded, and so is whether he knew what it says.

The three middle lines read as conditions — a shore taken by the sea, a flame going dark, a door without a handle — each with an instruction attached. The last line sets a price: surrendering the gift. What the gift is was not explained.

Open

  • Who asked him to open the door, and what the room was for.
  • Whether opening the door is what the Veil does, or a use it was put to. Its line is "discovers secrets of all sorts", and the room behind it lied about everything.
  • What else in the room was lying, and whether the beach in the window was the real one.
  • What the loop was, who or what set it, and what broke it.
  • What the stone is, whether the party still has it, and where the secrets it was given go.
  • What Liora spoiled, and how Percival already knew it.
  • Whether Gia gave up a secret, and whether the sandcastle came up again after.
  • What Onyx's blue light is. Blue is not one of the three deity colours recorded so far — Yellow (Valis), Green (Astor), Red (the Watcher). Whether it is a fourth is unconfirmed; see deities/README.md.
  • Where the lighthouse is, who built it, and what the light is for now.
  • What the language of the note is. Unidentified — Comprehend Languages got him through it without naming it.
  • How Percival had Comprehend Languages. It is not on percival-vale.md.
  • What "the Beneath" is, and what "the place where the First Ones fell" is. Percival's sheet carries an invocation named Lessons of the First Ones — whether that is the same First Ones is unconfirmed.
  • What "the gift" is that has to be surrendered, and who is holding one.
  • Whether the three conditions are a sequence to follow or a set of separate keys.
  • What Astor wanted out of handing the note over, and why to this party.