As we are still in bottom of these ruins, contemplating the path – I start thinking about the vision we all shared when Lenata walked the line. Something is bothering me about the city we saw and the crest on the uniform of the armed man….it’s from Toril in Realmspace? I’m just not sure what city. I share that with the group and Fynn mentions that the battlefield at the end is the Infernal Battlefield of Acheron, the edge of the Blood War. Kenari notices that Lenata and I are still sparking from our walk on the path. The Captain decides to walk the path next and as she does a new white thread appears with the words “God Mind”. As she’s walking, the whole room shifts subtly and we are apparently in the dreaming now. Lenata and Melchior don’t make the transition with us.

We see a figure standing in the doorway. Female, thin and dressed in tight black leathers with strange equipment. She has long hair and Ef Utan says “she looks like Lenata.” Apparently, this person knows someone the group had met up with before I joined. Someone (some person – that is not male or female??) who calls themselves Falak-13. This woman’s name is Melisande. She is excited to learn that we know Falak-13 and is asking where they went – apparently after leaving us – they never went back to…. Ok, I’m lost. The future?

The Captain is thinking aloud and wondering if the dream and time fractures are rubbing up against each other? [Wait, there’s a dream fracture?] Melisande notices that the floor pattern is changing when we aren’t looking at it and that while it was divination and electrical magic before, now it is dream and divination. So maybe it’s changing based on who the walkers are.

Kenari is going bananas for Melisande’s guns and Melisande is strangely excited by our magic items – so they actually make an exchange. Gun for a scroll. Kenari’s fur is practically standing on end she’s so excited.

Fynn proposed that we have a full exchange of knowledge to see if each of us knows anything that can help the others. He sums up where we are and what we’ve learned to date. Melisande shares that her team has been investigating the time rifts and while doing so they have been running into the cult of Vecna. On her side of the timeline there is a “Gap”. A period of time is missing for them…it is 320 years in Melisandre’s past. The Captain theorizes that the Gap is a sign of some kind of success….but it could be equally a sign of some kind of failure. I guess either way it doesn’t matter. There should not be a gap in the timeline, right? So that needs fixing.

Melisande mentions illithids – but she doesn’t really know anything about them. They practically don’t exist in her time, so we fill her in…between the group of us, we know quite a bit about that race. Melisande also mentions that besides the cult of Vecna there is another cult, of “Grandmother Rat”, and that the Vecna group has been trying to poach from the Rat group – as they are similarly aligned (secrets, shadows, etc.) and so that has been causing turmoil too.

The conversation goes all over the place really and I’m having a hard time keeping up. The drift, the Gap, history & time. Eventually, Melisande walks the path. At the end of the 3rd arc of the path, it terminates in a ball-shaped pattern – she sees a vision of a monolith that is projecting Falak-13 – the Monolith has a symbol of the Starfinder Society (who is?) and apparently it’s some kind of “AI” (which Melisande explains but I’m not getting – a mechanical brain/entity of some kind?) Melisande speaks to the AI and the display starts flickering through various forms – at the end there is a pattern of circuitry – kind of like what’s in Fynn’s hand, then a burst of white light, then fades…Ef Utan and Melisande see some of the patterns are tesselating in the arcane and some other different types of energy and then a burst and then there is only one kind. Melisande tells the group that in her time there is only one kind of magic. This information sets us all back on our heels.

Ef Utan walks the line next. He sees the dreamscape sculpting itself into a network of threads, some in clusters like weaving patterns. He sees Geldaneth in Mulhorond – but it’s worn down looking. He sees familiar faces but they are all 15-20 years older – there is a ripple of purple flames 100’s of feet tall that rips through the landscape destroying everything – only a few survivors. A vision of what happens if we fail, perhaps?

Melisande uses some of her “tech” to scan the small flask that Kenari found. Its blood. Very, very, very old blood. It should be dust by now but is not. And it has planar energies…what if this is god blood somehow?

Kenari decides to walk the line, but in Kenari fashion, she steps onto the path and then dimension doors to the end. Her vision is a time-lapse…a city of pyramids, Gheldaneth again, that fast forwards into a vast city with technology we can barely comprehend – massive warbirds fly over the city posting EIN colors. Are these competing visions? Depending on what happens, does Mulhorrond turn into this or a blown apart waste?

Fynn walks the path last. He has a vision of what he calls the “Gamma World”, then a jungle landscape of some kind, then another planet that gets hit by a meteor, then a horrible, large alien city…it’s indescribable – twisting and flesh and metal all at once…. his perspective pulls back and it’s a loom – with fate eaters on the other side eating the threads. And then it’s not threads, it’s the circuity and the same thing is happening – bits of the circuits are being eaten.

Fynn was injured by the line as he walked and Melisande uses some sort of tech to heal him. She has neat toys, that is for sure. We start to shift out of the dream and I realize Fynn isn’t shifting with us, so I grab him as the Captain grabs Kenari. We shift back to the real and we are still in the room. It’s a little different though – the air is now dry and musty…

Lenata and Melchior are there and are relieved we are back. They say we were gone about 90 minutes.