Session 8

It’s become trickier remaining objective, given the way things have progressed.

I’m not simply recording, translating and transmitting anymore.

I’ll play whatever role is asked of me, but keep in mind the task ahead of me requires judgment and opinion.

That being said, I believe I’ve figured out a way to run a combat scenario without everything melting into inky black puddles.

That’s got to be some kind of accomplishment.

-The Author

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Cribbage is true to his word, and you quickly receive a permit plate for the Loom Void Reserve. It seems they’re easy enough to get, and that a lot of recent mercenary work has been expeditions into the danger-ridden Position.

There’s an open square before passage out of the Guilds. Several groups outfitted with adventuring and survival gear mill about with their pack animals. Mostly Marauder Goats, the bullish and bulky pack animals preferred in this part of the city.

You’re reminded of the dig sites, and Speculation City.

But there’s actual stuff in the Loom Void, right? Not just formless chaos monsters?

You’ve seen evidence to that, yes.

Barrow agreed to loan out a scaffold platform for Accretio. A sort of streamlined travel version of the freight rig they had initially fashioned. A single platform with some storage lockers and chests and some basic adventuring gear.

Do I have anybody with me? A team or escorts or something?

The prices of mercenaries are a little out of your reach at this point. Cribbage recommended meeting some fellow researchers in one of the outposts within the Void.

Apparently most solo permit holders will find temporary traveling partners once they’re within the reserve lands. Try to find some folk with similar spots in mind and watch each others’ backs.

The permit plate is taken by a gateman, who leads Accretio onto a much larger plate affixed under the archway between Positions. It seems sized to accommodate wagons, carts and other hauling implements, so Accretio fits no problem.

The gateman taps a length of contractor stone on a corner of the larger plate, then to the permit you handed him. Ink comes to life on the permit, quickly etching a rendering of Accretio and the supplies contained on him.

The gateman taps the stone and drags it, which shifts the etching, rotating it and highlighting different portions. It seems to be some sort of living drawing.

Pretty sophisticated stuff.

He lets you through.

The Loom Void

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Part 1

Chorded Rustwood

As you pass beyond the archway, you are met by a steep rocky slope upward, peppered with cliffy outcroppings and other difficult terrain. You can see several routes that have been worn into the ascent, some individuals using rope ladders or climbing gear, while larger cart-appropriate paths wind slowly up its edges.

At the top of the ascent are copses of tightly knit trees and foliage. Nothing out of the ordinary at first glance, but the plant life here seems to be thriving.

I send Accretio up the ascent

Living Landscape, controllable

3 (1d12)

Tough terrain, unwieldy, unsubtle

9 (2d8)

You get a ways up the wider side pass and are rounding a bluff when the sheer width of Accretio is too much for a narrow pass.

The scaffold clips an outcrop above you and puts the whole rigging off center. The ground gives way underneath Accretio. You start to skid and sway off the edge of the path. A canopy of dense green hides the depth you may fall to.

I get on the scaffold, on one of the corners, try to correct their balance and stop the skid.

Drastic action, high finesse required

2(1d6)

So unless you want to sacrifice something for another shot, you’re not making it through this mountain pass.

Nope. I’ll just try to slide safely as far down as we can.

Current total: 5

Added challenge: avoid tremendous damage during fall

5(1d8)

So the ground gives way and Accretio starts dropping quickly. As they slide down this cliff face, they bump jutting rocks and roots and old stumps, jostling the scaffold and all your gear. As Accretio is right on that teetering edge of tumbling forward and crushing you and all your gear

I grab a free rope from the platform, swing around and to the back of their shell. I wrap the rope around a rock and pull, leveraging it like a pulley. I want to shift the weight back so they don’t tip over as we fall.

And it works, even if barely.

The tremendous weight of Accretio does most of the work as they plow through the dirt and rubble and past the canopy of broad leafed, slick leaves, but at a critical moment, half suspended in the air, you lever the weight of the scaffold to maintain balance.

The last twelve feet or so are a free fall as the cliff ends and boggy lowland begins, but the ground is soft, and Accretio sturdy, so you land safely with a weighted splorch noise.

The land is dense with draping heavy leaves, clumpy mud mounds around collections of roots and wet pits between. Daylight from above cuts through the canopy, but filters dim and green to the forest floor.

There is a persistent buzz of bug life, occasional birdsong, then you hear a bizarre heavy chain croak. The sound of iron bending and flexing, grinding into itself. The noise pulls taught at its pinnacle of stressed pressure, then a low and heavy bass hit of wheezing relief.

The noise erupts again.

I look for the source of the noise.

You lean over the scaffold’s edge, which is tilted toward the sky as Accretio has sunk in this boggy earth unevenly. You see perched atop a floating log, a beast of slick steel skin. A great frog, several feet in length, all of which seems to be built from coiled spring steel.

It is tightly wound and dense, giving the appearance of slick smooth skin.

Its throat protrudes and you a dull glow from deeper within as the springs stretch. Another cement mixer croak as its flashing yellow eyes look directly toward you.

The movement of the water beneath the log this chain frog sits on causes it to turn a little in place. Accretio’s sudden arrival seems to disturbed some natural pond formation, and this enormous frog's sitting spot along with it.

It leaps menacingly toward you