The Explosion, the Gate Examined, and Diana Arrives

Session Summary: 05/28/2023

Ahhhh, REINFORCEMENTS! Or at least, an additional complication wearing the shape of a reinforcement! As the heroes returned to the fallen chapel to conduct a proper examination of the Owl Gate's damage, they were met by an ooze creature that erupted from the catacombs to bar their way. They destroyed it with somewhat excessive enthusiasm and descended into the space below only to find a stranger waiting in the depths: Diana, a Duskwalker woman accompanied by HIM, a psychopomp eidolon of the Boneyard who wore the presence of finality the way other creatures wore skin. Professor Wreidt had sent her with a writing set, extra paper, a comprehension potion, and the very minimum of explanation.

Diana introduced herself and distributed the supplies with the methodical calm of someone who has accepted that the dead are not frightening so much as INFORMATIVE. Charles used the comprehension potion immediately on the archway inscriptions, and with Geist's guidance they assembled a comprehensive picture of the gate's nature. The Owl Gate was connected to the Dreamlands, that vast unconscious realm where dreams defied the rules of time and space, where a traveler could step from one gate to another without crossing the physical distance between them, but where something WAITED in the passages between. Baba Dania had once called it running through a waterfall: you passed through dry on one side and wet on the other, but the waterfall itself did not care about you. The Dreamlands were that waterfall, and lately the waterfall had teeth.

The damage to the gate was deliberate and expert. The leak was not accidental deterioration but the result of something having WORKED at the gate's integrity over time, loosening the magical seams until the trickle became a flood. The black sand was the physical manifestation of that leaking energy, condensed into grains that carried the gate's mixed magical signature into the soil and water.

Diana examined everything with the patient thoroughness of one accustomed to taking inventory of the dead. HIM observed silently, his presence creating a zone of stillness around him that the other heroes found either comforting or deeply unnerving depending on their relationship with mortality. The party had a new member, the gate had a confirmed source of corruption, and the investigation had just gained considerably more theological DEPTH!