Game summary for December 22, 2025, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Callum Spellhardt (Human Sorcerer played by Parker Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Herezis Tahriol (Mongrelfolk Paladin played by Preston Harmon), Piper Quickstep (Human Druid-Mage played by John Osborne), Skree Grizzlehide (Mongrelfolk Gladiator played by Peyton Harmon), Snagyndar Blackthorn (Huldran War Master played by Casey Scruggs), and Ursay (Mongrelfolk Slayer played by Paul Potter). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.
The eyeless gray-skinned men, grimlocks, advanced on the party while wielding crude axes. The massive serpentine monstrosity, a thousandtooth, slithered forward as well. Skree and Snagy ended up meeting its gaze and slowly began to petrify! Herezis discovered the Maw That Remembers had forsaken him and stripped him of his paladin abilities due to their turning over Uncle Izdreth to be sacrificed to a demon lord by the behtu. He was forced to fight with his sword rather than with his lance astride his holy mount, which limited his effectiveness. Piper fired off quickened stone discus and mad monkeys while Callum cast empowered fireball and later scorching ray. Ursay planted arrows into foes all across the battlefield, and Helg stepped up to cast healing magic upon an imperiled Skree.
The thousandtooth had tremendous reach, a poisonous bite, and its gaze slowly petrified targets. Soon all but Herezis and Ursay were turning to stone! The grimlocks took a number of hits from the party before collapsing, but they really were no match for the might of the team, even slowed by the thousandtooth’s gaze. Callum tried unsuccessfully to dispel the effect. The team watched in horror as Snagy turned into a stone statue! Skree was rendered unconscious and dying but did not succumb to petrifaction. Piper’s wolf mount, Hammer, ripped apart a grimlock while Callum blasted down two more. Herezis proved his skill with the sword is still formidable and cut down the grimlock chieftan. Ursay sank arrows into the thousandtooth, slaying it, but not before it afflicted Helg who also petrified.
The group looted the area and setup sleds to drag their two friends and the statues of mongrelfolk back to the mongrelfolk tunnels. They met with the clergy of the Maw, and they traded the statues of mongrelfolk for the restorative spells necessary to save Snagy and Helg. They then performed a ritual of atonement for Herezis. The team rested a day and the headed to the portal back to the Pelisso Swamp.
Activating the portal to return from the Forbidden City was easier than it was getting there. It seemed Aratheas was able to repair the portal on her end. With ease, the portal glowed and hummed, allowing the party to step through.
There was the familiar falling-not-falling sensation of plunging through dimensional travel, followed by a wave of intense vertigo. As they crossed the boundaries of time and space, a vision overtook them. They saw the sun dim in the sky, turning ruddy like blood clotting behind gauze. The ground rippled, not just seen but felt, like ocean waves made of earth and stone. A single breath, not belonging to any of them, broke the silence.
Then came gibberish. No, talking, but in a language ancient and unknown. A reptilian eye opened in the center of the darkened sun, staring down at each of them. They felt exposed. Seen. Known. Something unfathomable took their measure. Tears ripped through the sky, and drops of blood began to flow, falling upward against gravity. And then the vision was gone.
They stood once again in the Pelisso Swamp. The three serpent statues stared mutely at them. It was close to dusk. Their cargo barge lay destroyed, a smoking heap of ruin. Something had ripped it apart and set it ablaze fairly recently. The only thing to survive the fire was the heavy metal furnace helm, sunk halfway into the mire.
Scattered around the barge were savaged boggard corpses. They were ripped, torn, and shredded, body parts strewn across the mud. A terrifying altar stood nearby, built of intertwined spinal cords and limb bones. Upon it sat a severed boggard head, rotting in the swamp. Flies buzzed and scattered as its eyelids slid open, revealing white-dimmed, dead orbs.
In a gurgling voice, the head spoke. “Helg, Helg! Your doom is foretold. Gleh has come. Gleh has come for you!”
With the final syllable, the flesh sloughed off the head in a disgusting, flowing ooze, leaving behind only a bare skull.
