SCENE ONE: MAELSTROM ALLEY — NORTHWARDTime: 6:49 AMWeather: Fog-heavy, light drizzleMood: Skewed reality
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Exterior — Maelstrom Alley
What should be a simple cobblestone market ne looks… wrong.
The fog doesn’t drift. It hangs — frozen in midair like smoke underwater. Lanterns sway without wind. Reflections ripple across puddles with no one near them. A cobbler’s sign reads “SALE TODAY” — except it flickers between nguages.
And most unsettling: every sound in the alley echoes twice.
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The Party Arrives
Krummar is first, shield out but low.His aura glows faintly silver as he steps into the mist, vender-scented breath marking each exhale.
“This isn’t illusion magic. It’s bleed.”
Mel (stepping beside him, eyes narrowed): “From where?”
“Somewhere we’re not supposed to look.”
Her hand tightens on the Gulthias Staff, the ground beneath her boots pulsing with a strange, fungal heartbeat. A single vine slithers from the gutter and curls protectively toward her feet.
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Melodia stops short. Her eyes shimmer as she stares at the fog.
“Something’s watching. Not… from here. From next to here.”
Her moonstone choker flickers violently.
She hums — soft, haunting — and the fog parts slightly. Not much. Just enough to make it worse.
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Daka (shirtless, obviously) walks straight into the center of the street, flexes, then yells:
“SHOW YOURSELF, YOU COWARDLY WIZARD FART!”
Echo.Echo.
Then silence.
Then something ughs.
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The Illusion Tears
A child runs by.Or seems to.Her form skips like a scratched record — repeating the same step three times before vanishing into the wall of a bakery that doesn’t exist.
Mel raises her staff — moss curls around her wrist.
Krummar holds up a hand:
“Wait.”
A figure appears.Tall. Masked. Cloaked in ribbons of flickering color.Where its face should be: mirrors.Where its feet should step: silence.
“Welcome to the new world, saved ones,” it says.“Would you like to see the truth?”
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Codex Fallout Trigger: Shared Visual Colpse DetectedAll party members must roll Codex Presence Save (DC 14) to resist emotional fallout from inverted reality exposure.
Rolling…? Melodia: Fails — Emotional Echo Surges. Her freckles shimmer. She gasps and clutches her choker, stepping back into Mel’s arms unconsciously.? Mel: Passes, but just barely — Her body tenses. Vines writhe along her boots.? Krummar: Passes — His tattoos fsh. He steps forward.? Daka: Fails spectacurly — He ughs.
“OH I’M GONNA PUNCH THIS INTO A NEW DIMENSION.”
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Combat Status: Not Yet Triggered
Masked Figure remains still.
“This city is fiction. Let me show you the edits.”
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SCENE ONE CONTINUES — MAELSTROM ALLEY, WATERDEEPTime: 6:50 AMFog: Emotionally responsive.Tension: Escating.Narrative Layer: Codex-Css Inversion Field Active.
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Krummar Moves First
The gray-skinned duergar steps into the alley’s heart, fog coiling around his navy and pale blue armor. His tattooed hands pulse faintly with divine warmth as he lowers to one knee, murmuring a sacred Sel?nite invocation beneath his breath.
“Let what is false crumble. Let only light remain.”
Divine Sense Activated.
The air fractures. A ripple tears across the mirrored figure’s chest — not illusion, but narrative distortion. Reality stutters.
Krummar (grim): “It’s not lying. It’s overwriting.”
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Mel — Eyes Narrowed, Staff Grounded
Mel’s boots sink slightly into the soft, moss-veined ground beneath her. Her olive-toned skin flickers with reflected light from three different suns that do not exist. She says nothing — just watches.
Her Insight roll: 21.
Codex Axis Read Triggered — Target’s emotional state:? Obsession: 6 (toward the party)? Guilt: 0? Attraction: 0? Comfort: -2? Trust: Fluctuating, unstable
“It doesn’t want to hurt us,” Mel murmurs, voice low.“It wants us to agree with it.”
A single thorn curls from her Gulthias Staff, pulsing darkly.
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Daka — Shirtless Confidence Engine
He flexes.He charges.
“ALRIGHT, FOG NARRATOR — LET’S DANCE.”
Daka leaps.Acrobatics Roll: 26.He vaults off a fruit cart and dropkicks the figure square in the chest. It doesn’t move. But Daka rebounds off it like a glitch in a dream.
Daka (sprawled on the ground):“Okay. First punch: ineffective.New pn: scream until magic works.”
His eldritch tattoo glows—he punch-snipes the cobblestone behind the figure, just to make a point. It shatters in slow motion.
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Melodia — Stabilizing, Frightened
Her freckles glow like stars on her cheeks. She steadies her breath, one hand to her chest, the other gripping her Lyre of Stars. Her vender corset dress trembles softly in the unreal wind. She sings a single note.
“Stop…”
Spell Cast: Hold Person (Save DC 16)
The masked figure stutters.Like a puppet on a broken string — its shoulders lock, then twist backwards, then forwards again.
“You are… observed.You are authored.This line is not yours.”
It resists — but something in its movement flickers.
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Environmental Shift: The World Peels? The buildings split like origami.? Clouds glitch into mirrored versions of the party.? A second Mel stares back from a puddle. Her eyes are full of thorns.? A second Daka flexes in reverse, then vanishes.? A second Melodia is crying — but her tears float upward.? Krummar’s mirror doesn’t appear at all.
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Masked Figure Speaks, Fractured Voice:
“We do not seek combat.We seek authorship.The city is a stage. Let us write your next act.”
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Codex Combat Trigger: PendingAny hostile action will initiate Inversion Combat — rules will bend. Identity may glitch.
Characters may instead parley, provoke, or destabilize the illusion with emotion or narrative interference.
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Narrative forks:1. Mel can speak to her mirrored self.2. Daka can attempt to destabilize reality with spectacle.3. Krummar can challenge the being’s authorship with divine force.4. **Melodia can sing — not a spell, but a memory — to fracture its control.
SCENE ONE – MAELSTROM ALLEY, NARRATIVE FRACTURE POINTTime: 6:52 AMWeather: Fog-hung, color-warpedReality Status: Glitch-yer activeCodex Layer: Emotional-Reflective Narrative Braid Triggered
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Mel — Face to Face with Herself
The mirror-puddle ripples. The second Mel rises — exact in every physical detail: athletic, olive-toned skin, long dark hair tangled with moss, scars across the bicep and shoulder. But her eyes are wrong — too wide. Hungry.
She steps forward from the puddle without sound.
“You’re wasting your pain,” the reflected Mel says.“You bury it in mushrooms and silence. Why not let the roots take over?”
Mel’s real body tenses.The Gulthias Staff vibrates — a low, thudding pulse like a heartbeat.
“That pain is the roots.”“I grew here.”
Mel raises her hand — palm open.
The reflection lunges.
But vines burst upward between them — a Codex Root-Soul Reaction.
Codex Terrain Shift Activated: Trust vs. SelfRoots sh through the fog and shatter the mirror-version mid-leap.
Mel doesn’t flinch.She just mutters:
“Nice try.”
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Krummar — Divine Defiance
The duergar’s tattoos glow as he strides toward the figure, stepping through the rubble of Daka’s earlier suplex attempt. The fog parts around him, responding to his emotional Axis Authority.
He pnts his shield and raises his holy symbol to the sky.No incantation. No plea. Just presence.
“You want authorship?”“Stand trial for it.”
System 277: Devotional Echo Matrix — Tier II Triggered.
The air rings.A radiant pulse — not light, not sound — emanates from Krummar. The mirrored buildings waver.
The figure staggers. Its ribboned form begins to de-thread at the edges.
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Daka — Becomes the Glitch
Daka, lying in the debris, pushes up and grins.His pirate hat is slightly crooked. His chest shimmering with Codex Glow.
“Ohhh, you glitchin’?You haven’t seen a REAL error yet.”
He rips off the Belt of Swagger, spins it over his head like a sso, and begins singing a bardic suplex bald — pure nonsense. But it’s LOUD. And real.
“THERE ONCE WAS A WIZARD WHO FORGOT HIS OWN PANTS,I PUNCHED HIM SO HARD HE NOW SPEAKS IN ENCHANTS!”
Codex System 346: Chaos Crown Engine Activated.
Performance Roll: Nat 20 (public, witnessed by 3 party members and 1 spectral vendor)
Reality breaks for 1 second.The masked figure is knocked out of sync with this world.
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Melodia — Sings the World Back
She steps forward slowly, barely touching the ground. Her vender corset dress shifts with her breathing. Her longbow unstraps itself, floating beside her — forgotten.
She begins to sing.
Not a spell. Not a battle cry. A lulby. One she heard as a child beneath the starlight canopy of the Feywild, sung by someone she can’t remember, but who must have loved her.
“Rain isn’t wet… it’s sky-tears…And I will hold your storm.”
Codex Fallout Triggered: Emotional Lulby Layer? Mel’s thorn aura flickers off for one breath.? Daka pauses mid-flex.? Krummar lowers his shield — but his eyes glisten.? The masked figure… shudders.
It kneels.
“We remember now… you are not pyers.You are pages.”
It lifts a hand.
“Take this key. Find the Editor.”
A glowing sigil floats forward — a twisting, golden ribbon shaped like the word “Rewrite” in ten nguages.
Then the figure shatters into stardust.
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6:55 AM — Silence
The fog retracts.The street returns.The fake buildings are gone. The glitch-light fades. The air warms.
A real pigeon nds on Daka’s shoulder.
“…That was a lot for pre-breakfast,” Mel says ftly.
“I am now the God of Illusions,” Daka decres.
Melodia, blinking slowly:“I need a cookie and a long sit.”
Krummar, quietly:“That wasn’t an attack. It was… a warning.”
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Loot Acquired:? Sigil of Rewrite — Unlocks hidden threads in faction missions (Plot-Item: Codex Active)? +1 Inspiration to all party members? Mel’s Trust Axis +1 (toward herself)? Melodia’s Comfort +1 (toward Mel)? Krummar’s Presence Score: Temporarily +1 for 1 hour? Daka’s Swagger is now historically documented in one mirror dimension.
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Scene End: Maelstrom Alley RestoredWaterdeep breathes again.
