{"id":1632,"date":"2024-11-08T17:46:33","date_gmt":"2024-11-09T01:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/?p=1632"},"modified":"2024-11-08T17:46:35","modified_gmt":"2024-11-09T01:46:35","slug":"session-3-lumia-in-the-sky-with-dragons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/blog\/2024\/11\/08\/session-3-lumia-in-the-sky-with-dragons\/","title":{"rendered":"Session 3: Lumia In The Sky With Dragons"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After meeting with the kobolds, the adventurers began their long trek back to Moonbright. Day turned into night… perhaps a bit abruptly. The party felt lightheaded and disoriented. Something, or someone, was manipulating their sense of direction and proportion. All paths led to an ancient cemetery gate with an illegible inscription chiseled upon it. Erosion had blurred the words into gibberish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With their options for egress limited, everyone entered the long-neglected burial ground. An eerie fog clung to the ground, and dark clouds conspired to blot out the moon. A single shadowy figure in a dark cloak stood in front of a mausoleum and beckoned. Attempts to speak with it mostly resulted in susurrations and muttering until it finally mustered one intelligible statement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Did Meepo enjoy my gift?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Startled, Daegon asked if the specter was responsible for the Scalemolder plague. It nodded in the affirmative and offered its claw. Daegon hesitantly accepted and received a horrific vision from a past life. The Void Dragon hatchling that had emerged just before the end of Old Midgard opened its gateway to The Labyrinth using the Void Passage ritual, destroying the souls of many stalwarts the adventurers had known in their previous life. This the party had seen in dreams many times. But the tale of that tragedy had more to it than their nightmares revealed.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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The ominous figure seemed familar….<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

When the Void Dragon hatchling shapeshifted to pass through the interplanar portal, it intended to join The Void in its campaign to annihilate all life and matter across the multiverse. The Void Dragonkin shape it chose was a temporary necessity of scale to pass through the door. But once it did, Meepo’s spell warped the passage as the being passed into it, cutting the malevolent creature off from its intended destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter how fast it ran, no matter how hard it tried, both ends of the grand staircase descending between the Material Plane and The Labyrinth realms always remained at the same distance. Desperate, it restored its proper form — that of a young Void Dragon — and flew at speeds that could’ve carried it across the inconceivable distances of the Astral Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even that didn’t work. It was trapped, and although Void Dragons do not require air, water, or food, they do<\/em> grow old. Agonizing millennia of isolation passed until it perished from extreme aging. Then its corpse wasted into dust. Then the dust yielded to something else; something primordial and undead that formed over millions<\/em> of years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This undead Void Dragon lingered in its prison until The Tower returned to Midgard, at which point it could just barely project its will and consciousness through the cracks of reality. The attack on Meepo’s people was an initial attempt at retribution on the holy kobold for the actions he took in his past life. But the dragon had far more malevolent plans for the future — and the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A number of skeletons and shadows rose from the graveyard and attacked. Gleefully, the Void Dragon’s tenebrous projection announced that these were the tortured souls and bodies of the thugs killed earlier at the mill. None of them had returned to town and all of them hungered for revenge. Their strength began to overwhelm the party. Daegon was the first to fall. A healing kit barely restored him to consciousness, but it didn’t restore his health and vigor. Then, strangely, a feminine voice resonated in the party’s minds:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hang on a while longer! Don’t die! I’m nearly there!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mortimer fell, only to heal and rise back to his feet. An emphatic, deafening voice rang in his thoughts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RISE AND RISE AGAIN UNTIL LAMBS BECOME LIONS!<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Madness paralyzed Ivor as the undead architect of this trap pointed toward him. The Void Dragon’s innate affinity for insanity had only grown over the long ages. Still, Ivor managed to avoid any serious injury. Daegon, however, fared worse when the psychic attack traveled to him. He clawed at his body, convinced he was covered in spiders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, the odd telepathic voice spoke to him in reassuring tones:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sleep… heal… be sane once more.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Daegon slumbered, he had a vision of a brilliant, vibrant landscape populated by fierce shield-maidens and luminous dragons that glowed in every imaginable hue. They were practicing their tactics and battle skills. It was some kind of otherworldly fighting force. But what was their purpose?<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Lumia\u2019s stellar realm, where she trains her hunters.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The party knocked down one or two of the undead, but the remainder threatened to finish off the outmatched heroes. And that’s when helped arrived in a bolt of brilliant light. An adult Light Dragon with a mysterious rider in formal fox hunting attire appeared from the heavens. Their radiance dispelled both the clouds and the fog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calmly, the dragon’s rider spoke in the same voice the party members heard in their heads. “Photothrax, would you be so kind?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Of course.” The dragon inhaled deeply, glowed like the heart of a sun, and expelled a blast of light that instantly vaporized half the remaining undead attackers. “Your turn now, Lumia.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, the rider pointed her rapier in the direction of the remaining abominations and annihilated them with her own luminous ray. Both rider and dragon then turned to the shade at the mausoleum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Interfering bitch!” It snarled and vanished into the shadows. The menacing aura of madness and terror surrounding the area dissipated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both the dragon and his companion introduced themselves. The Light Dragon, Photothrax Voidrender, was companion to a Living Star who called herself Lumia. Like all Living Stars, Lumia had a peculiar fascination with an aspect of mortal life on Midgard. Hers was hunting. Only she hunted The Void’s abominations, including Void Dragons. An undead Void Dragon represented an irresistible challenge, and she’d been tracking the fiend since it first started manifesting on the Material Plane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"Light
Light Dragon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Living Star<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stunned and bewildered, the party conversed with the celestial beings until they departed for another errand, which Lumia would not clarify in any detail. “But we’ll be here when you need us,” she promised. “I’ll see you at your tower!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the long trek back to town resumed once more….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After meeting with the kobolds, the adventurers began their long trek back to Moonbright. Day turned into night… perhaps a bit abruptly. The party felt lightheaded and disoriented. Something, or someone, was manipulating their sense of direction and proportion. All paths led to an ancient cemetery gate with an illegible inscription chiseled upon it. Erosion … Session 3: Lumia In The Sky With Dragons<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":false,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[85],"tags":[86],"class_list":["post-1632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ttrpg","tag-tgr"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Designer-22.jpeg?fit=1024%2C1024&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peoZy7-qk","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1632"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1662,"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1632\/revisions\/1662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/werebear.net\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}