24.1 - Observe

GM: Felix
Players: Dusk (Martin), Sapphire (Gry), Reed (Torstein), Mica (Henrik)

Description: The players are asked by Cliff and Poppy to escort them to the observatory that lies on one of the mountaintops nearby. They are expecting a child, and the observatory allows them to connect to it more easily. On the road they meet Filament, who is acting shifty and distracts them while a figure sneaks around them to head towards the village unseen - Sapphire notices that this is happening, but not who it is.

On the road they talk a bit more about children. In this world, (human) children are born from starts that fall during spring (usually). At the end of spring there is the festival of lights, where couples that want a child (in rare cases even just one person, or more than two) can send a little glowing orb up towards the sky, where it will from from a tiny speck into a vibrant star over the course of the year, and fall as a baby next spring. During this year the parents have a psychic connection to the child, which allows them to feel how it is feeling, and sort of converse with it - the child isn't really able to understand or send more than raw emotions. Anyway, in Mooncreek, this connection is dampened, which doesn't surprise the group because magic in general is. But being high up - like on a mountaintop - boost it a bit. And a stronger connection to the stars like an observatory does so further.

Dusk races ahead to the observatory, and accidentally halts some of the machinery, so he slinks away.

They reach the observatory, and are warned by Cliff and Poppy to not mind the rude astronomer who runs the place. Going in, Cliff acts very stand-off-ish, while Poppy is overly bubbly and friendly. Lavender, the astronomer, has a long-suffering expression while greeting them courteously if not friendly. They send Cliff and Poppy off to one of the guest rooms, which the two are happy to do to get away from Lavender. This way the group can talk privately with the astronomer. She tells them that this attitude is fairly normal - Mooncreek is quite insular and she is weird enough that people from there don't like her by default. After confirming that the group is aware and not afraid of spirits, she also reveals that the observatory has a spirit, though a fairly young one.

During the night, they each get a chance to use the telescope and admire the stars. They step into a dark room, with a platform where a ray of concentrated starlight shines down from the large telescope, which they peer through to gaze upon the sky.

Mica, having been informed about Dusk's accident, feels bad and decides to do something nice for the observatory. He uses alchemy to improve the lenses beyond what would normally be possible. Looking through it, he can see the sky so realistically that is feels as if he is floating incorporeally in it. This is even more amazing, but poses a problem when he tries to leave - so caught in the stars, he cannot feel his body and thus not move away from the telescope. Mica calls out, and the observatory spirit answers. Mica uses the wish power to offer the spirit anything it might want if it releases him. The spirit agrees, and after some thought asks to be capable of looking beyond the sky. Contrary to how this power usually works, this wish is not immediately granted. There is some resistance, but Mica pushes more power into the ability, and something gives. He is suddenly free, and stumbles backwards. Where there was a beam of concentrated starlight, there now is a beam of concentrated darkness. Mica decides to leave quietly before anybody notices it was him.

They leave the observatory, and on the way back see a star fall. They head to the village, to find people forming search parties to search for the fallen star, Cliff and Poppy's baby.

Mica tells Sapphire of what occurred with the wish, and the two of them head back to the observatory to warn Lavender.

Reed joins the search party, and spots Filament having found the baby and trying to keep it away from the other search parties. They have a confrontation, and Strata joins as well. There is obviously something clandestine going on, but the two aren't willing to reveal anything for a while. It takes quite some convinces, but eventually they explain that this is their child. They had a fling, and while they love their child a lot, they can't give it a normal life. Strata is basically a social outcast - which has been dealt with in a different plot, but would take a while to return to normality. So they had a vague plan to give their child to another normal family which could pretend it was their child and still let them visit and help raise it. They also had quite a few arguments over the topic, so their fling didn't turn into a proper relationship. Anyway, Reed suggests they should just say that Filament is an only parent - with stories from the caravan to back up that this is actually a thing that can happen. This way, they also have a reason to not reveal that there was a child any earlier - the unusual nature of an only child would be frowned upon, so the story would be that Filament kept it secret for that reason. Thus this plot thread was resolved.

Meanwhile, back at the observatory, Lavender, Mica and Sapphire talk about the beam of concentrated darkness which comes from looking beyond the sky. They all agree that this is a dangerous thing, and the observatory should not be used to look at stars before this issue is resolved or studied enough. Sapphire experimentally holds a shoe under the beam, and it looks strange afterwards. Nothing obvious changed, but it no longer looks as if it is a part of this world. They leave the shoe with Lavender as a warning of what happens to things exposed to the darkness - so she doesn't get overcome by curiosity and tries to look beyond the sky.

Players Retellings:

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