Roleplaying table top games make for great stories! The Envoys of Spark is a Dungeons and Dragons campaign created by Elyse T. Join hilarious and entertaining player characters on their voyage in an unknown world, as they try to accomplish an enigmatic mission.
The Envoys of Spark Chronicles are published every Monday! Check back for new adventures!
Check Out Part I of The Envoys of Spark
Check Out Part XIV of The Envoys of Spark
Seance
After a night in The Singing Anchovy, a magnificent floating inn and funeral home, the Envoys met over breakfast. Kohmai described to his companions what he had seen on the beaches of Whisper Mist, the so called “island of the dead” during the night. Medea was very interested to go check it out, while the others responded with “nope” quite a bit.
They mingled with the Anchovy’s patrons, passing the time until their scheduled séance, later that evening. Regor III accosted the widow who had invited them to the nightly ritual, and inquired about the inheritance she had no doubt gained when her husband had passed. Despite being very flattered by the Hynerian’s compliments, she stated that she was, for the moment, not considering future marriage prospects. She however promised to perhaps sponsor the adventures of the Envoys of Spark, once the séance and any possible visits to Whisper Mist were concluded. Beatrice asked the widow about her husband’s death, and discovered the man had simply “become cold overnight”.
Mistress Geraldine purposefully emptied the main reception room to accommodate the séance. The elderly medium, met the evening before, settled for the event. She invited the participants to sit, lit a candle and placed it at the center of a large round table. She placed her little crystal pyramids, divination tools, around the candle, calling the room to silence. Each was instructed to look at the flame and think of the beyond.
“Whisper Mist, hear us. The dead are voices in the wind to us, help us find the souls we have lost. Whisper Mist, hear us!” The medium was speaking to the candle.
For a moment, a silhouette appeared before the attendees, emerging through the table and hovering above it. It was a well-dressed man, composed of see-through ectoplasm. His skin was transparent, showing the insides of a corpse, organs, veins and muscles glowing under his clothing. The apparition looked at the widow fondly and reached an arm out:
“Whisper Mist opens, to you, my love. Come meet me, where we can be together at last!”
The voice seemed disjointed and broke away as the widow begged the ghostly image to latch on. The Etchings in the palms of the heroes’ hands suddenly throbbed and they flinched at the sudden burst of pain. A bright flash of light blinded the group for a moment.
When their sight returned, they perceived dark shadows emerging from the floor as the previous silhouette had, and spreading across the room.
“Pathways for a lover and his widow, pathways of death await you below” echoed across the Anchovy, as though shouted by a hundred voices. Ominous shapes started to take form all around the table, moving closer with evil intent.
Past the Veil
A spirit approached Medea and reached at her insides with it’s ethereal hand, chilling her to the bone.
At the back of the room, three white female ghosts screeched with inhuman voices and damaged the ears of Virgil, who stood closest.
Talking to the strange apparitions seemed to do nothing, Beatrice realized. Kohmai observed the spirits carefully and quickly understood that some link between the Etchings and the sudden incident existed. The spirits seemed mesmerized and attracted by the Etchings. He waved his Etching from left to right, making one of the ghosts dance, seemingly hypnotized. He guided the spirit to the fire place, and led it without its knowledge into the fire. Despite its very dead nature, it burned.
Medea offered up her magical knowledge: “The dead and fire are both primordial forces, and can affect one another…at least, that’s how it works where I’m from.”
The heroes defended themselves from the hoard of ghosts that surrounded them, and were nearly dragged past the veil. The widow hid under the table, clearly a target of interest for the spirits. Physical attacks were only barely effective against the undead creatures. In the end, careful use of fire made them victorious.
Whisper Mist
The ectoplasm that had made up the apparitions pooled on the Anchovy’s wooden floor as the Envoys caught their breaths and nursed their wounds. It slithered into a little stream, slowly slipped beneath the front door and disappeared out of sight.
The Envoys, along with the widow, followed the ectoplasmic puddle, while the medium was much too shocked to leave the divination table.
Outside, the ghostly material had stretched into a long and thin silver bridge, connecting The Singing Anchovy’s docks to the beaches of Whisper Mist. The link seemed to be made of fog, and was barely wide enough to allow a person to walk. As though in a trance, the widow immediately walked up the bridge and began a slow march to the mysterious island. Medea followed without question, while Kohmai, Virgil and Regor contacted the Waveweaver, boarded, and asked it to follow the widow across the water. Beatrice tied a rope to the Waveweaver and to her waist, not completely trusting the ectoplasmic construction, and followed Medea on the bridge.
The sun was rising when the group reached the shores of Whisper Mist. The widow awoke from her hypnotized stated, and asked what had happened.
Meanwhile, Medea used her magical abilities to sense our any danger in the area. She felt that a strong center of power sat at the center of the island, on some sort of elevated ground. Having no other alternatives, the heroes walked under leafy trees with barely any underbrush. The forest in the daytime was creepily quiet, not a bird or insect could be heard. The silence was so deafening that amidst the noise of the group’s footprints, they kept thinking they were hearing whispers circling their ears.
Dangerous Depths
They climbed a grassy mound, and found at the top a strange ruined henge, made of standing stones. One in the center of the ruin was a glowing marked stone, the writings unknown to the adventurers.
“It’s my name, Manil, written here,” said the widow, looking like she might have fainted.
Regor found a grill hidden in vegetation to the west of the henge; below seemed to be a man-make tunnel. Kohmai broke the grill open without hesitation, and Medea, with her mage light, entered with the other Envoys.
The roughly worked, plain stone corridor was full of cobwebs. A set of double oaken doors were just visible at the end of the passageway. The roof, at least 20 feet overhead, was obscured by hanging strands. Their footprints echoed through the small chamber.
Virgil opened the doors, only to find a wall on the other side. A small compartment was dug in the stone, however, and inside lay a small, knife-shaped crystal. Medea reached out for it, and as soon as her hand touched the object, the room began to rumble. The ceiling was crumbling down!
Everyone quickly ran out, and only the wizard was lightly damaged by falling debris. When the widow spotted the crystal in the Medea’s hand, she suddenly claimed it, and ran to the center stone displaying her name. She found a small hole in the stone and inserted the crystal inside, locking it in place. The woman did not seem to realize what she had just done.
Beatrice then noticed, on to the south of the ruin, a small stairwell headed down. The entrance was a bit buried, but would not take long to dig out. Once the way was cleared, the Envoys yet again entered an unknown underground tunnel.
Two separate doors were dimly visible at the end of this roughly worked, plain stone corridor. Writing was displayed at the top of the frames, but none understood the language used. Not wanting to trigger another trap, the Wizard was charged with advancing first, and to look carefully for any danger. She identified a tile which acted, she was sure, as a pressure plate. A bit of help from Regor, who knew quite a bit more about technological devices, revealed that a secret partition in the right-hand wall was designed to slide across the hall once triggered, trapping whoever was inside.
To avoid any unpleasant complications, Kohmai went back outside, picked up the smallest of the standing stones, and placed it against the trap partition to block it. The group then felt safer venturing inside the room. Curious, the heroes opened both doors, intending to take a peek before choosing one. Inside, they found again solid walls, yet each had a painted, frightening mask lingering at waist height. Each had marble black eyes and unnaturally wide mouths.
The mask on the right said: “Beyond is love, passion and hope.”
And the mask on the left said: “Beyond is rest, detachment, rebirth”
They disappeared, and the walls behind each of the doors disappeared into a dark and opaque mist. The group began arguing about which door to choose.
After merely twenty seconds, a faint bizarre noise resonated over the sound of their voices… and the ceiling started to slowly drop.
Thinking of Manil the widow outside, the four charismatic Envoys dragged their guardian Kohmai, who truly disagreed with the notion, through the door that had spoken of love, passion and hope.
Inside, they found a pedestal, with another knife-shaped crystal waiting patiently to be taken. No traps awaited them, yet Medea flinched when she claimed the key.
Despite the ceiling in the entrance room becoming dangerously low, she was curious about the second door. The masks, however, had seen the Envoy’s choice, and would keep their mysteries. As Medea crossed the threshold of the “rest, detachment and rebirth” door, expecting to enter a new room, she found herself stepping out of the exact doorway she had just entered. Some trick of magical physics had turned her around.
Medea had to crawl out of the corridor, and was pulled outside by her companions, nearly crushed by the trick ceiling. Again, the widow claimed the key and inserted it quickly in another hole in the center stone.
This time, a large floor stone slab covered in moss and grass, unnoticed by any of the heroes, slid open, revealing a formal entrance to dangerous depths.
