The Copper Piece Gang

D&D Session Summary

This session picked up in the memory-realm where the party was dealing with the aftermath of Ivan’s spirit joining the gem. All three spirits, Stefania, Naveena, and Ivan, were now bound inside it, and the gem had reached its full brightness. That should have been a moment of calm. Instead, the collapsing nature of the realm made everything harder. The environment was already warping, distances were becoming unreliable, and the sense that they were standing in something actively dying pressed down on every decision.

The first major challenge was navigation. The group needed to get back to the archway and the portal, but the memory-world’s geography was breaking down around them. What should have been a simple retracing of steps turned into an exercise in staying oriented through spaces that kept looping, stretching, and refusing to behave like normal physical locations. They moved through courtyards, corridors, alabaster spaces, and ruined arches, all while the structures and distances around them flickered and shifted. The party had to keep communicating and moving constantly, because stopping too long in any one place felt like risking becoming stuck in a collapsing node of the realm.

Rae’s arm-gem continued to serve as the primary light source. Without it, the paths would have been completely dark. Even with it, visibility was limited. The shadows pressed in from the edges of the gem’s light, and at various points the party spotted shapes moving in those shadows, things that were not part of the realm’s peaceful echoes but were instead drawn to the disturbance caused by the ritual completion.

The shapes resolved into three shadow creatures at the archway when the party finally reached it. These were not the same kind of slow-processing corrupted remnants they had encountered before. These were mobile, deliberate things that had apparently been waiting near the portal for an opportunity to slip through into the real world. Their first action was not to attack the party directly but to begin solidifying physical forms, which gave the group a brief but crucial window to act.

Selganth moved first and drew several of the shadow creatures toward him, taking advantage of his strange connection to the realm. Zarnak went for something riskier and more creative: he used the memory scroll that the party had found earlier and turned it into a weapon by forcing the shadow creatures into direct contact with the memories it contained. The result was broad and messy but effective. The memory-scroll weapon hurt the shadow creatures in ways that normal attacks might not have, and when the effect resolved, all three were gone before they could complete their physical manifestation and escape through the portal.

That was when the Forgotten arrived.

The Forgotten was not something the party had been fully prepared for. It appeared with two glowing orbs, one radiating positive energy and one negative, and the whole encounter had the feel of a last desperate magical detonation waiting to happen. The realm itself seemed to hold its breath for a moment when it arrived. Zarnak, reacting on instinct, rushed in and tried to physically interfere before it could act. That decision triggered the event. The Forgotten slammed the two orbs together and exploded.

The blast was devastating. Timon survived by the narrowest margin imaginable, and the party was thrown into chaos. The memory-realm was now collapsing faster. Spaces that had been minutes away were suddenly seconds away. The archway itself was shaking. The party had to make the choice between staying to fight the Forgotten properly and getting as many people through the portal as possible before the whole dimension folded in.

They chose the portal. Nucky healed Rae while Zarnak physically hauled him toward the arch. The plan became simple and violent: get bodies through the portal, damage the portal from the other side to prevent the Forgotten from following, and accept whatever losses that required.

In the middle of that chaos, Selganth made a choice. He stayed behind. His connection to the memory-realm and to Rae had always carried a quality of sacrifice waiting to happen, and this was where he spent it. He positioned himself between the Forgotten and the portal to hold the thing in place long enough for the others to escape and for one more improvised plan to work.

Zarnak called out. Between him, Selganth, and the collapsing environment, they lured an owlbear into charging the portal area. The owlbear hit the Forgotten at the worst possible moment for it and the best possible moment for the plan. As Rae was forced through the portal during the collapse, the closing edge of it severed his arm. The portal went down. Selganth was lost. The Forgotten was stopped.

The party emerged in the woods outside Red Tower changed in ways that would take the rest of the campaign to fully measure. Rae was down an arm. The flask of liquid shadow he had collected felt tied in some way to Selganth and to whatever might come next. Everyone had leveled up. And the memory-realm, whatever it had been, was gone.

The aftermath was quiet in the way that only follows something enormous. The group stood in normal woods under normal sky and understood that the air tasted different now that they were out. They had resolved three spirits, charged a magical gem to its full power, destroyed a pocket dimension, lost a companion, and paid a physical price that would define the next chapter of the campaign.

Quick Recap

• The party moved through a distorted memory-corridor where normal light failed and only the gem in Rae’s arm illuminated the path.
• The memory-realm was collapsing, making navigation unreliable as distances and directions broke down.
• Three shadow creatures waited at the archway portal, starting to solidify physical forms to escape into the real world.
• Selganth drew the shadows toward himself while Zarnak used the memory scroll as a weapon to destroy all three.
• The Forgotten appeared with orbs of positive and negative energy and exploded when Zarnak tried to physically interfere.
• The blast devastated the party and accelerated the realm’s collapse, forcing a decision between fighting and escaping.
• The party chose the portal, with Nucky healing Rae and Zarnak dragging him toward the arch.
• Selganth stayed behind to hold the Forgotten in place, sacrificing himself so the others could escape.
• The group lured an owlbear into the portal area as a final weapon against the Forgotten.
• Rae lost his arm when the portal’s collapsing edge severed it during the escape.
• Selganth was lost, the Forgotten was stopped, and the party emerged in the woods outside Red Tower.
• The session ended with Rae missing an arm, the party leveled up, and a quiet understanding that everything had changed.