The Shifting Prison, Part 3

The Party: Arcturius-9, Corwen, Farrow, Khonshu

Late afternoon in Stonepoint, the party gathered at the Tinkerboot Apartments after the carnival. The horizon walkers and Sister Sullivan were also present. After some food and rest, the group discussed their thoughts on the reality shifting, with Khonshu the most suspicious this time. Arcturius-9 met Farrow’s parents and pretended to eat dinner with Farrow’s help. The rangers that had been awakened confirmed Khonshu’s knowledge of Lanternwurm and the places in that reality. Corwen talked to Sister Sullivan but got no useful information from her as she seemed grounded in this reality. The party tried to sleep to recover from the day.

In the early morning darkness, an alarm bell sounded and people were running away from the guard station. The group gathered to investigate, met by guards running away and telling them not to get any closer. The Lantern Wurm Killer had returned. The adventurers moved ahead to find three dead guards that had been thrown through the windows. Farrow’s drone caught sight of the Killer who had returned to collect his sickle weapon from the station. The drone was batted away as the party engaged the Killer.

The monstrous figure kicked part of the wall at Arcturius-9, burying him in the rubble. Farrow’s drone marked the Killer with faerie fire as she tried to help Arcturius-9 out. Corwen fired an arrow that struck the bone lantern the Killer was carrying, catching his attention. Khonshu used his artificer craft to send the rubble on Arcturius-9 sailing back towards the Killer who ducked away. Enraged, Arcturius-9 cleaved in with his greatsword. This caused the Killer to teleport away, but the party heard some noises nearby.

Farrow sent her drone skyward to catch sight of the glowing, marked Killer. They did their best to track him down, leading to an alley and manhole where he dropped into the sewer. Khonshu asked the guards to watch the sewer exits as the party entered after the drone went down, seeing no sign of the Killer. The sewer gases made their feverish heads spin. As they stepped down into the sewer, they found themselves back in the Shifting Prison where they were before. Khonshu and Farrow noticed some changed in their bodies, with Farrow’s flesh on one arm becoming ghostly with glowing bones, and Khonshu finding one hand covered in black spiny scales.

Sneaking up as best they could, Corwen tried his sleeping arrows, managing to knock one of the transformed rangers out. The more monstrous creature ran at them, and Corwen incapacitated it with a well-placed arrow. They tried to comfort the rangers as the remaining mutated figure ignored them.

At the end of the hall was a bulbous red jelly plug sealing a passage way. Examining it, they could see some light source beyond. Arcturius-9 tried cutting through with his backup mundane greatsword, but the jelly sealed itself after being cut and left an acidic sizzle on the blade. The party tested the plug with fire, acid, and bullets, but there was no lasting effect. Finally, Khonshu sent Mule tunneling through, it took acidic damage along the way but managed to get to the other side. Before the hole closed up, Farrow used her staff to emit a force pulse that blew the hole open long enough for them to scurry through.

After a few moments of combat, a light flared from the creature’s tail lantern and the party found themselves back in time before they passed the jelly plug but with their memories intact. This time blowing the plug with a force pulse first and rushing through, they engaged the bone serpent once more. This time, Corwen timed a shot at the lantern that blew it apart, ending any time loop hallucinations. The fight broke out in earnest, with melee attacks from Khonshu, Mule, and Arcturius-9, covered by Farrow’s force beams and Corwen’s arrows.

Some strikes on the creature shook the reality around it, changing the scene to underwater combat. The party held their breath and tried their best to keep fighting. The creature’s mental attacks charmed Arcturius-9 into attacking his friends and frightened Khonshu into swimming away. One blast from Farrow shook the scene again to a flaming lava pit, though luckily the adventurers found themselves on solid ground.

Recovered from the fear effect, Khonshu missed with a catapulted rock but caught the serpent with a rebound shot. The monster had flashes of insight that let it see how best to attack, and it banished Corwen and Arcturius-9 back into Stonepoint at various points. But the party kept their offense going, even as their weapons had reduced effect on the bony creature, which bit and sprayed streams of acid at them. Another landed strike knocked the reality shift back to the original island chamber as the prison’s warden unleashed a column of radiant fire, burning Corwen and Farrow and reducing Khonshu’s homunculus Canary to its core crystal, which Farrow recovered. Corwen’s last sniper shot knocked the skull off the monster. Most of its damaged body crystallized and crumbed, though there were four ribs that were recovered by the party.

As they moved to examine the door and think of a way out of here with the rangers, the skull rose from behind and lunged at Khonshu but missed completely. At this moment, the ash creature they saw before emerged from a crevice and jumped at the skull. The skull bit down and destroyed the ash creature, which momentarily revealed Sister Sullivan’s face before blowing away. Arcturius-9 took the opening and cut the skull in half, shattering it.

Now the group tried the door from a distanced with Farrow’s mechanical arm, but it proved too heavy, so Arcturius-9 pushed the doors open. The space beyond revealed Stonepoint and the TInkerbook Apartments courtyard. Glowing wisps escaped the door and flew into the prison. The buildings of Stonepoint faded one by one and so did the figures walking about. Farrow’s parents stopped by the door to thank Farrow for being a daughter for a while before fading out. The scene eventually cleared to reveal the exit out of the prison, somehow to the same location the entrance had led to.

The jelly plug also dried up and allowed them to gather the bodies of the rangers, including the two semi monstrous ones. They carried them with the help of Khonshu’s conjured floating disc, and they let the monstrous figure expire to put it out of its misery. Once outside, the Shifting Prison’s opening closed in on itself, apparently dormant for the time being.

Finding some distance to contact Lanternwurm, the group sat to process their mixed memories, altered bodies, and the fact that weeks had evidently passed while they were away.