The Time Skip

Historian: Caleb. Date: 08/18/2025

TLDR – The party wakes up in a strange castle, 70 days ahead of the last day we remember. We find out the castle has rooms devoted to/generally used by each of us. Our coats and inventories have also been updated. The party does some snooping, and several people find items they’ve hidden. We meet the lord of the castle, and he reminds us of a ball coming up tonight. He requests our help filling in for the head chef. Alphie and Astranna show up to lunch fashionably late.

• Date: 50 Lionnir 777 AR 23 Knewidi 777 AR.
• Dalton gives the recap – but where we left off is not where we end up. We begin with Jericho waking up in a castle. He’s in a huge and luxurious room, with massive windows allowing the morning light to stream in. The room is decorated in beautiful colors, and has armoires, and a desk with stationery. His traveling bag and possessions are in a corner. He looks around. He’s laying in very nice satin sheets. He has no memory of how he got here!
• He looks for a calendar, and finds that his has dates marked up to the 22nd of Knewidi – meaning this is the 23rd of Knewidi, 777 AR. 70 days ahead of the last day we remember. He looks for his journal, and finds pages missing from it. The last part talks about meeting Magion and Ishin, explaining the Jubilex situation to them, and how they were going to sleep on it and come up with a plan the next day. They were both pretty cordial, and asked questions of everyone regarding certain details of our natures. Doesn’t seem too crazy.
• Jericho puts on his clothes and gear. Piero pops out of the pocket.
  • “Boss?”
  • “Oh, thank goodness you can speak.”
  • “Boss, there’s something wrong.”
• Piero then turns bright green.
• They discuss the 70-day memory gap. Eventually, there’s a knock at the door. A small, winged individual flies in with a tray of coffee.
  • “Oh, hello, Mr. Jericho! Seems like you’re already awake? Morning coffee?”
  • Who? I’m sorry, who are you?”
  • “It’s me, Practical! Your… butler?”
  • “My butler?”
  • “Well, the Tattercoats Knights’ butler.”
• Jericho asks to be brought to the other Knights.
  • “They’re usually still asleep, but… right this way!”
• He finds out he’s in a whole wing of the castle. There are multiple other doors in a semicircle fashion, each with a name of ours on the door. Practical whistles, and we hear their voice, telling us breakfast is ready. Astranna, Alphie, and Gwyn come out. Jericho asks Practical to go make sure breakfast is kept warm, and she flutters off.
• Anja slams her door open.
  • “WHERE ARE WE?!” [+flair for the dramatic]
  • “Also look at this” [Jericho holds up Piero, who begins strobing]
• Anja asks Maple if she can change color. She says she doesn’t want to. Astranna asks Henrietta how she’s feeling.
  • “Piiickles…”
  • Her eyes aren’t focused on anything.
• Alphie checks the risk assessment device. 0/10 risk. She and Jericho knock at Prudii’s door, since he hasn’t come out yet. He’s readying up for an attack, and when Jericho opens it, he barrels through everyone with Speeder. He goes down “any random corridor”, stopping on a dime and waiting for the rest of the party to funnel in.
  • He rolls 2d6 [8] and passes by a group of small winged people carrying fresh sheets, along with a room that appears to be a forge with a bunch of tools and half-designed pieces.
• Astranna intends to circle around behind him, and goes off down another random corridor [2d6 – 5].
• Jericho asks Prudii where we are. He levels his katana at Alphie.
  • “You. What did we talk about the first night we met?”
• Alphie says they talked about how Meropis worked, the different gods, etc. The blade shifts to Anja.
  • “What did you help with in the house?”
• Anja says she mainly helped with breakfast, but also taught Maeve some tailoring tricks. This satisfies Prudii for the moment.
• Astranna enters into a massive sewing room, with all types of fabrics and designs. They seem to be the handiwork of Anja. Prudii and the others rush in, and she asks if he’s still running from us.
  • “Not for the moment.”
• She points out the room. Alphie summons Fred.
  • “SALUTATIONS.”
  • “Any idea what’s going on?”
  • “BALL.”
  • “Okay thank you.”
  • “EXCITEMENT.”
• Anja finds lots of formalwear – at least 3 suits and 3 dresses for each of us. She’s been on a tear, it seems. They’re all in her signature style and fashion.
• Jericho looks at the floors and walls for any SOS signals he left behind. He sees a chair in a good spot, and realizes it’s the spot he’d have picked. He sits down in it, and the chair has a message scrawled into it.
  • Room 5. Date added: 17th of Knewidi.
• We find a swimming pool, a gym, a room with a roaring fireplace and cozy chairs, and there’s even an indoor garden that looks surprisingly like one of Astranna’s gardens at home as she passes by. There’s also a lower section of this wing of the castle. It has a long oak wood table set with red and deep blue placements, and has plates piled high with ham and fruits, and still-steaming biscuits. Floating above it is Practical.
  • “Welcome, all of you! It’s all still warm! Can I get your drink orders for today?”
• Jericho asks for OJ. Anja asks for coffee, and agrees to her usual. Alphie also gets coffee.
• Jericho sits to one side, close to an end, and does his normal check. He finds a hidden compartment in his chair – he flicks the switch, and pulls out a drawer hidden in the seat. Inside… 5 seashells. He hates this.
• Practical tells us she’s heard through the grapevine that there will be tiger jugglers at the annual Antian Ball tonight, brought by the Volvadier Party.
• She mentions a lord of the castle – we ask about diving with him. He’s having breakfast with Burgess, but Practical agrees to invite him to lunch for us. Once she flies off, Jericho starts inspecting his seashells thoroughly [B2 – 4 successes]. He comes to one solid conclusion. They are completely normal seashells.
  • “Good news, everybody! The lord of the castle has accepted your invitation to lunch!”
• We find out the lord of the castle’s name is Lord Piranesi.
• Prudii opens a window and immediately tries to climb out. We’re very high up! On a mountain! We see a forest of great sequoia trees, and past those… endless, swirling mist. Past that, we see foliage and trees.
• Alphie tries to summon Inora. There’s a burst of energy from within them [M – 2 successes]. Inora appears, and Fred pops out. She doesn’t know where we are either, and asks why we’re not in the Skybound Lands – apparently, the last she remembers is the Farmer’s Temple.
• We decide to split up to check things out before lunch (buddy system). Jericho and Anja go to the bedrooms, Gwyn and Prudii go to the forge, and Astranna, Alphie, and Inora head to the garden.
• Alphie wonders if Inora got blended again, but she just seems confused and bombarded. Alphie asks if they can have flowers from Astranna’s garden, since the ones they bought at the market are probably dead, and Astranna agrees, saying she’ll teach them how not to kill the flowers this time. Alphie is offended. Henrietta says flowers are pretty.
• Jericho talks to Piero. Apparently, Piero found tomato seeds in Jericho’s pocket. He also just woke up blue. It doesn’t hurt, though.
• Anja feels a new depth to her power. She’s distressed by this – she doesn’t know if she was controlled, or if she chose to continue. She tells Jericho about the vow she made to herself to be the one who breaks the cycle.
• Jericho shows her his new gold gun. He thinks it could kill just about anything. They continue freaking out about the situation, and Anja gets +1hp for realizing we’ve been going to multiple events, based on the amount of formalwear.
• Jericho mentions another problem.
  • “You remember the last day we remember, when we were at Alphie’s place? You remember their sibling, Dusk? They asked me to do a reading for them. I did two. And the prospects were not good. [...]
  • That grave was in a village by the sea. And now I’m finding seashells.”
• He’s also concerned about how we’ve been acting – have we been perfect houseguests?
• In the bedrooms, Jericho goes through his desk. He finds blank paper, and another secret compartment, with a map he’s drawn with different points on the castle, including a little “you are here” mark.
• Apparently we’ve been working with the Honorable Government of Perfect Quality and Great Order (HGPQGO). Their laws are suspect at best. They rule over the Land of Mists.
  • He’s left a note for himself that he can’t tell if they’re related to the Lord of Mists. It’s… not a prison, but a hard area to get to within the Skybound Lands. He doesn’t want to write too much. He’s here on a quest to get a very important item, the sun staff.
    • “Be wary of Apophis. Make sure to keep an eye on the party.”
  • He’s concerned something was watching them, and there might be danger within the castle. He’s removed any information that could mess with the mission.
• In Anja’s room, she looks for a journal, any continuation of the paper/notes she was starting… she doesn’t find anything. She checks her wardrobe. It’s full of new clothes, handmade by herself. She finds letters stitched into one particularly nice dress.
  • “It’s growing.”
• Anja lets Maple stay in the room and goes to regroup with Jericho, who’s still checking his room. Nothing hidden in the clock, or under the bed… but he checks a boot… and finds another damn seashell.
• Anja knocks on his door, holding the dress, and asks if he found anything. He says a few things, and asks what she found. She shows him the dress. They decide to head back.
• We cut to Gwyn and Prudii, who head to the forge. Prudii knocks on the walls as they go, trying to find studs and discrepancies.
• [Caleb stepped away.]
• Gwyn can’t find a lot of notes on the projects here, which is strange, because she normally takes a lot. She heads to the back of the workshop and finds a biometric scanner on a door. She reaches for it, and the synthetic flesh of her hand momentarily pulls back, and the underlying metal of her hand makes contact. It scans and opens up.
• She sees a pocket dimension with all types of metals, alloys, different liquids and metals, all very well-documented. Seems like she has a bit of everything at her disposal. As she peeks in, on the inside of the door… “Anja was here” and then a little heart etched into the wood.
• She takes some of the rare materials to stuff in her bag – there’s a ½ lb each of adamantine, mithril, teculite, and luminite. She takes it all. She also takes a few fragments of sapphire, ruby, emerald, onyx, and topaz.
• Thinking back to her room, it seemed normal. Her armor was there, and seemed like it’d recently been fixed up. She asks Prudii what he wants to check, but he doesn’t know. Gwyn says she doesn’t like the feeling of this place, or of not knowing where we are.
• Prudii doesn’t know if he has a room besides his bedroom. She offers to look – it might do us some good to get familiar with our surroundings. He agrees, and they find two that seem like they may be his.
  • There’s a sand garden in one room, beautifully raked and well-kept. In the center of the sand garden, on a raised dais, there’s a half-finished sand mandala made of all different colors of sand.
  • There’s also a room that looks like a training dojo. There’s a series of straw dummies, and a balcony overlooking the mountainside. There’s a raised wooden column going 8-9 ft up, with handholds to stand on.
• Prudii looks at the sand mandala. It’s beautifully intricate, a symmetrical pattern that folds inside of itself. The exact pattern is a symbol from Sweet Meadows that’s basically a centering symbol, a ward to bring peace and serenity.
  • “It’s… it’s home. It’s home.”
• He tells her it’s a symbol from home meaning peace. He thinks he would meditate here – though he doesn’t want to right now. He agrees to teach her to meditate when he meditates next. They decide to head to the dining area.
• Astranna and Alphie check out the indoor garden. There are about 12 rows of crops planted there – wheat, barley, corn, tomatoes. There are patches in the ground that seem empty, but hold potatoes. There are also green beans. A nice mix of things. At the far end of the room is a single tree with apples on it.
• Astranna looks at the crops. They’re in various stages – some, like the corn, are ready to be harvested, while the tomato plants have been recently harvested. Looking at the apples, they’re a light, reddish pink color. The tree seems healthy and well-watered, no parasites.
  • The apple isn’t the kind she grew back in Geldorf – it could be from the Rings, but doesn’t seem native to any place she knows.
• Astranna tastes an apple. It tastes like a peach! She convinces the others to try them. Alphie looks for flowers.
  • There are none – it’s fall, so not really the season, and Astranna doesn’t tend to grow things just for looks.
• There’s a wall with tools – hoes, rakes, pitchforks, water buckets, etc.
• While Astranna looks around, Alphie opens Inora’s pocket dimension, and she and Inora pop into it. It looks like it did when they last entered. They ask Inora some more questions about the situation, and Inora seems to initially think Alphie doesn’t believe her, but Alphie says they’re just trying to figure out any details.
• Inora asks about meeting Alphie’s parents, and why we left. Alphie says we got into some trouble, and the only way to escape that we could find was teleporting to the first place they could think of – and that was home. Alphie says their parents really liked Inora, and Inora seems pleased.
• They talk a bit more, before Alphie says they should get back to me. Inora points out that that was the point of the buddy system.
• Astranna makes a mental save [7 successes]. Nothing happens. There’s a warbling in front of Alphie, and then the two of them turn to Astranna.
• Astranna checks the tools and potato plots. Nothing of note. They head to the bedrooms. Nothing of note there, either.
• Alphie checks out their room. It’s also pretty normal, how they typically set up their bedroom. She tells Inora they went through their childhood bedroom back at their parents’ place.
  • “I wish I could remember. I’m sorry.”
• Alphie says they wouldn’t mind doing it again. Inora says sure, when they get out. Talking a little more, Inora says she woke up in the galaxy and looked around, was a little confused, thought Magion or Ishin had done something, but then Alphie summoned her. Alphie questions her mentioning Magion and Ishin.
  • “I don’t know. The last thing I remember was… [she blinks a few times.] I don’t know.”
• At this point, the area around Inora starts to flicker a bit. They see ice starting to spread out from her feet, frost starting to cover the floor going outward.
  • “I… when… when we first… met… what did you say to me?”
  • “That was so long ago.”
  • “I… I don’t… it’s always cold… why do you get to be warm?”
• Alphie holds out Abea’s necklace and tells Inora to hold onto it. She grabs onto it, and Alphie tries to activate it to remove 5 levels of cold. Inora blinks a few times, and as she exhales, they can decrease their own cold by 2 (to -3).
  • “Um– sorry, what were we talking about?”
  • “Um, cold.”
  • “Oh yeah, it’s a little chilly in here.”
• Alphie invites Inora to dinner with the lord of the manor. They fish Astranna out of her room and head back. Astranna asks if Alphie’s okay, and they say they’re good, then try to send Inora ahead to check if the others are there (S - 1 success). Inora’s uncertain about if she can go that far from Alphie, but she agrees to try, and slowly makes her way down the corridor.
• Once she’s gone, Alphie says she’s freezing – she briefly remembered that in the galaxy, she thought Ishin or Magion had done something, and she got weird and cold. Alphie had her touch the necklace, and she got warm again, and then was better.
  • “The first time that I went into my galaxy, I met somebody who said she was broken, shattered in a way, and I promised to help her, I’m wondering if this has something to do with that.”
• Astranna says she understands why Alphie didn’t want to tell Inora, but that Inora’s feelings were probably hurt by obviously being sent ahead so Alphie could talk behind her back. Alphie starts to talk about Inora’s weird moment of resentment, before Astranna points out that they’re running late (at this point, about 12 past).
• In the dining hall, the doors open from the opposite side as before, and a bright blue peacock individual enters inside, beautiful plumage trailing to the side. He gives the party a bow.
  • “Tattercoat Knights, ah, thank you for the invitation today.”
  • “Of course, pleasure to have you.”
  • “Did all go well last night?”
• Jericho falters.
  • “I suppose it might be up in the air. But no matter. Where are Alphie and Astranna, and Inora?”
• Jericho says he’s not positive. Lord Piranesi says there’s always something to do. The government’s in a tizzy, so they probably got roped into a scheme. Jericho asks how things are going, and he says well. He helps himself to some salad, and says there are conversations about things like which party will supply hors d’oeuvres.
  • “You know, political peacocking. [...] I say, since your arrival, this castle has not been running smoother. I must once again give my thanks and gratitude, truly you are the legendary Tattercoat Knights.”
• He goes on to say that he thought we were scrambled when the water wheel burst a couple days ago, but Gwyn outdid herself, fixing it in an afternoon.
  • “I will make sure that the cakes made with the flour from the mill tonight are repayment, at least as much as we can manage. [...] So, what have you been doing for the opening part of the morning? Getting ready for tonight, or have you cooked up another scheme?”
  • “Oh, nothing too extreme for today, wandering about. Anja has made us some very nice outfits for this evening.”
• He tells us the tiger jugglers have arrived – he saw a five-armed one practicing. He doesn’t wanna give anything away, but it will be phenomenal if we can make it.
• He tells us Practical is always one to gossip, but there’s no one who pays closer attention to the fine details.
  • “She got my coffee right this morning. And all mornings.”
  • “Yes, yes, very studious with her lists and routines and things of the like. [...] But yes, the Allegant party were the ones who supplied these jugglers, it was a good choice. Good choice.”
• Anja asks how the meeting with Burgess went.
  • “Oh, yes, well, Burgess wanted my opinion on the new muffin law, I simply said that I host the Honorable Government, but I try to stay back as much as possible. She tried to pick my brain a little bit, you know how Burgess is.”
  • They then played billiards.
• He says that it’s peace one moment, then chaos the next, and the cycle goes around and round.
  • “Sometimes it feels like it’s all getting away from you, I suppose.”
  • “It is tough to hold onto the world that you knew. You turn around and it feels like everything changes.”
• Piranesi says that it’s rare we give him a social call, as we’re very busy. He asks if there’s anything he should be concerned about, with the ball tonight. Jericho says he keeps a vigilant eye, but no issue yet. He asks if Piranesi’s heard anything we should be aware of, and he says that the head chef has a stomach bug, and we won’t have the full courses that were planned.
  • “Wait, I– didn’t… I remember a story you all told me where you won a cooking competition.”
• Jericho says it did happen, but under very odd circumstances.
  • “I don’t mean to be presumptive, but… would it be possible for one or more of you to fill in tonight?”
• Anja says she’s unfortunately horrid at cooking.
• Anja says Maple was acting squirrely, and asks if there were any strange happenings last night or this morning. He says he was hoping to find out more from us, considering the ton of gold that was given to us, along with the salt, chalk, and crystal ball. He asks if Anja needs more gold – anything for a favorite guest.
• He tells us it was all supplied last night. Practical to him earlier this morning, saying she’d heard yelling and explosions.
  • “I noted that it was probably just your usual activities. You all are magnificent, but you tend to be loud at some points, rambunctious. I can only imagine what Alphie, Astranna, and Inora are getting into right now!”
• He says he wondered if it had something to do with Apophis, or our meeting with Margaret Mosby yesterday.
  • “What did happen last night?”
• Anja says it’s foggy, and asks if Margaret Mosby would be here tonight. He says of course – she’s the head of the Volvadier Party.
• Anja says she slept wrong last night, and hasn’t been able to think straight. Jericho says he’ll see what he can do about the cooking.
• As Alphie and Astranna walk in, we end the session here. Everyone gets +2 hp.