Session 113: Who created the creators? (August 20, 2026)
Last session, our heroes prepared a case for the leadership of Hojo to act against the looming threat of Central Command. They filled Izume in on the fight with the assassins, then set about their preliminary tasks. Heph and Eden went to Mana’s to pick up Harry Nickel, since he could make a good witness. They gathered him from Ana’s paper army and marched him across Hojo back to the council chambers. Eden cast Comprehend Languages on goliaths as they passed, and heard gossip about Maho returning and bringing outsiders with her.
Meanwhile, Maho talked with Rei about the letter they had received from Joerg. Apparently in Joerg’s youth he had done some exploring while observing griffins in the mountains, and had come across a cave. The cave led deep underground, and worn, ancient etchings on the walls resembled runes that the goliaths still used. Joerg had kept his discovery a secret and, with the help of Rei, cataloged his findings, in the hope that one day when Maho came of age, she would have a piece of Cryptop she could claim as hers, despite her parentage. Maho resolved to stop by Rei’s Books after the council hearing to see his notes.
The party regrouped outside Hake, and all entered into the council chambers. There they met Chief Mori Hojo and Isamu, her eldest child. They stood with Ichisake, the second eldest, artisan smith, and smut peddler; Io, and Izume, to listen to the party’s case.
Isamu didn’t seem especially inclined towards believing the extent of the threat against Hojo, and the Chief seemed to mostly defer to his judgement. Specifically, Isamu was unwilling to risk any action without a full collaboration with other settlements like Oda first. Rei recounted the fight against the assassins, Io attempted to lend her weight as best she could, Eden suggested they “take it outside”, Heph demonstrated a captured Bead of Force, and Maho did her best not to lose her temper. Eventually, Maho pulled out the cloak her mother had sent her, having kept it tucked away in her belongings since receiving it. Despite her conflicted feelings about the gift, she invoked the Chief’s deep respect for Mana and Mana’s trust in Maho, earning her respect. Despite Isamu’s confidence of being in charge, Chief Mori bucked his leadership and with a new fire inside her bid Maho gather a force and seek out the truth of the threat against Hojo.
- We walk out of Hake, having been given the green light to proceed with an
expedition, leaving the Chief and Isamu having a quiet but heated discussion
- Ichisake leaves and heads back to his smithy, and Io and Izume walk up to us a bit surprised as how well everything went
- We debate briefly who should go along with us, and Suzuki, who was standing nearby, pipes up saying to Maho that they are hers to command
- He’s joking a bit, but also there’s some weight behind it, and he seems willing to follow her
- We decide to leave before dawn to aim to get there by sunrise, and we leave Suzuki and co to go get ready while we go to talk to Rei
- We head off to Rei’s bookshop with Rei to look at the map Maho’s
dad left her
- Arriving back at the bookshop, there is not a lot of evidence of the fight that has taken place, and Rei moves the few books that fell to the floor back onto a table
- Rei leads us to a table in the back corner of the room, and after a moment of digging through the books pulls the table aside and looking on the shelf behind, he pulls out some books and making room, puts down Joerg’s field notes
- They point out some annotations that they have made in the books to try to augment what Joerg had observed
- Rei explains that the notes aren’t super organized and are pretty stream of consciousness style, but it seems like the caves are quite deep and have a lot of runes carved throughout them
- As best as Rei and Joerg could tell, the runes are ancient version of modern runecraft, and Rei did their best to match the ancient runes to the modern equivalent in the notes
- Heph digs into the books, looking at the runes from the perspective of artificery
- He hands Maho her monocle while he’s looking, and Maho and Eden dig into the books using comprehend languages
- Maho and Eden find that the ancient runes are more of a language than modern runes, and although they are able to read it, it’s hard to discern any real meaning from the words, the concept they are describing is incredibly complex and detailed
- Heph recognizes some patterns in the runes, seeing that every time a sequence of runes repeats, one of them is changed slightly, and it seems to Heph that he is looking at some sort of computation
- Heph also notices patterns in how specific runes are repeated on the walls in specific rooms of the cave, like a room with a spring that has a rune meaning something along the lines of heat
- There is also a room with a hot spring of some sort, and the runes in that room are similar to the fire rune, but according to Maho it’s a fire and water rune combined into one
- Heph notices an element of creation to the runes, more than a record of facts, they seem to have a power to them that can change the world around them
- Heph arranges the sequence of runes in rows, and works with
Maho and Eden to translate them, to see if there is any
clear pattern to what they are
- This reveals descriptions of the natural world that are slowly changing over time
- One of them describes empty space, then is modified to describe a salt plain, then is modified to gravel, then is changed to an expanse of dirt or soil, and it continues to evolve, describing hills, mountains, ravines, and caverns
- There is another sequence that starts with a similar void, and then changes to thread, then dye, then weaving, then cloth, then curtains, evolving all the way to the hanging of the shroud
- There is another sequence that starts with the earth and sky already there, and then evolves into water droplets forming clouds, the ravines and valleys filling and becoming rivers and oceans
- Another one describes the creation of seeds and plants, and another one describes insect and more complicated animals
- We get the sense that these are sort of creation myths, specifically Maho recognizes the various branches of the cave having stories associated with various different giants
- They aren’t simply stories recorded on the cave wall though, there is a power behind the runes, and Maho starts to toy with the idea that these aren’t creation myths recorded in a cave, the runes in this cave are actually creation itself
- Heph asks how far the cave is, and Rei doesn’t know exactly, but thinks it’s pretty far, and points out a rudimentary map on the inside cover of one of these books
- Joerg had not fully explored the caves, but it does seem that all the branches generally converge to a destination
- Heph and Maho head to The Garden, Eden
tagging along since it’s on the way to Mana’s house
- The Garden is a massive oval shaped stadium, and we walk into what is essentially a stadium mostly devoid of any spectators
- There are two groups of 5 goliaths, one with tunics and one without, playing with a small ball made of tree sap that they are bouncing on a polished wooden floor
- There are circular woven hoops at each end they are trying to throw the ball into, which seems to be the origin of the name of the game
- Eden goes to the snack bar and buys fantasy Cheetos
- There is a coach or manager on the sidelines giving them notes, and it seems clear that the team is practicing for the game the next day
- Maho walks up to an administrator and asks if Eden can try to dunk at their next break, and they look over at Eden and say “the child in the rabbit costume?”
- Heph asks what we get if both Eden and Heph manage to dunk, and they answer that they will let all 3 of us play in the game tomorrow
- Eden grabs a ball and can’t carry it, so she bounces it and asks if that’s okay, and we learn that that is what the rules require
- Eden goes first, and she dribbles the ball towards the hoop and rabbit hops, but she manages to hop fully over the hoop, but then turns around in mid air, saying “oops I have to go that way”, and then dimension doors to the hoop and slams the ball through the net after passing the ball through her legs, and ends up awkwardly hanging from the rim, and then teleports back to the ground about 6 seconds later
- A few seconds later, Eden starts glowing brightly, and she teleports a bit farther away to not blind everyone
- Heph runs towards the net, dribbles, and jumps up, activating his winged boots and dunking the ball without nearly as much style
- Off in the distance, Eden is glowing super bright and periodically damaging insects around her with necrotic damage, thunder damage, and other damages
- The manager begrudgingly tells us we can join the game the next day
- Eden and Heph decide to go back to Mana’s and
get some sleep, and Maho heads off to meet up with Suzuki
- The crazy magic emanating from Eden has stopped, but there are some lingering effects around her as Heph catches up
- She is still glowing and invisible, and Heph uses a Dispel Magic to stop some of the effects
- While walking back to Mana’s, Heph tries to calm her down a bit, saying it isn’t a big deal and that sometimes the magic gets away from us, he mentions how he was half-exploded his parent’s house a few times
- She talks about staying to clean up and getting chased away, and Heph tells her we aren’t chasing her away, and with that she is crying a bit and ends up hugging him
- Getting back to Mana’s, Goro has a bunch of bottles of wine ready, and He asks where Maho is, to which Heph responds she’s at a bar
- Over at the bar, Maho is having fun at her first time at a goliath bar as an adult with Suzuki and the other goliaths, but is managing to hold her own, and still manages to get a full long rest despite partying a large portion of the night
- While under the influence of alcohol, she thinks back to the conversation with Rei earlier, where she mentioned not knowing who made the giants
- She thinks about how the cave is the giants creating the world, not the giants themselves being created, but she realizes it’s weird that the writing is in caves if the writing is the thing that created the cave
- As her eyes sort of blur looking over the pages, she sees a broader picture, and she sees a network of caves that seems weirdly familiar, almost like a network of veins, a massive vascular system all combining and splitting apart all leading towards some center
- She thinks that the cave can’t be made of rock, and is wondering what it is and who created the giants