✎ resources:adventure:facets_of_perfection [animus]

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====== Facets of Perfection ======
===== Initial Brief =====
Invitations have gone out to those in the know and quickly circulated through adventuring circles.

"The Respected Zara of House Rom would be grateful for the assistance of trustworthy and dependable citizens to undertake an expedition into the Plane of Perfection. Discretion and a certain comfort with planar travel are desirable. Applicants are to report to Diarmada House, Rom."

===== PCs =====
  * [[user:michaelc:pc:aldrich_kamali|Aldrich Kamali]] - Mike
  * [[user:declan:pc:peleus_perin|Peleus Perin]] - Declan
  * [[user:chaos:pc:rekha|Rekha]] - Chaos
  * [[user:alexet:pc:garrek_vow|Garrek Vow]] - Alex

===== Summary =====

Once every seventy-seven years, the Plane of Perfection comes into a particular alignment which allows a window in which an otherwise unreachable area is accessible. There, there lies a gem of particular splendour known as the Glistering Stone. Zara of House Rom hires the party to retrieve it.

Using Aldrich's connections and a little gratitude, the party manage to arrange a meeting with Magister Audata who agrees to permit Peleus and Garrek use her erosion totem to protect them from excessive perfection. In return, Peleus offers his gratitude and Garrek consents to an experiment wherein Audata's familiar is inserted into him to travel into Perfection. 

The totem very nearly costs the party their lives but they are ultimately successful and proceed to meet up with Zara's granddaughter, Hana Ní Diarmada, who reluctantly opens the way to Perfection. The party push forward through the guardians of the place – eight-legged, silver-furred monkeys – and thanks to the protection of the erosion on Peleus and Garrek, are able to figure their way through a strange locking mechanism. 

A dome of psychic energy blocks their progress and proves to be a difficult obstacle as the party are unwilling to submit to the purification to pass through. Eventually, Peleus devices two rituals, the first two connect everyone to Aldrich's familiar Curio (a fragment of Glory) and the second to pull everyone through once Curio has passed to the other side. With Garrek announcing the approval of the Wheel, they put the rituals into action and manage to pass through with a minimum of negative outcomes. 

At the top of a flight of marble stairs lies the Glistering Stone, guarded by a large crystal guardian which reflects off beams of light. The party fight valiantly but it is clear they are outmatched. One by one they fall and are sucked up by the light. Rehka is the last one standing; she turns down an offer of power from Glory to instead switch with her familiar who charges in and falls...

The party simultaneously wake in an antechamber. Aldrich suspects they are in a different place in the Tower of Perfection, which seems at once to be protruding from the side of the Tower and yet also within it. The sound of a dinner gong and the aroma of food draw them through to a great circular chamber where there is a great golden sphinx who names himself Order, the warden of the prison they are in. With him is Law, an androgynous figure with a blank metallic mask who explains that they are an agent of law. 

Among their fellow prisoners, they meet a creature of the forest, Gerharde Kamali and most notably a young woman named Bethania who claims to have been a partner of Zara and that they attempted to steal the Glistering stone together what must have been seventy seven years ago; Zara escaped but Bethania was captured and imprisoned. Time seems to work strangely, eternity and moments being one and the same and it seems no one has aged since their imprisonment. 

The party set out to escape and break out as many prisoners as they can. They manage to deduce their way through the warden's security riddle chamber, disabling the security measures protecting everyone inside and preventing them from leaving. They follow the sounds of commotion, cutting through swathes of Avatars of Purity and rescuing several prisoners, including Bethania who flees outside.

The unleashed forest creature poses a threat to Rastaban though and the party cannot stand by. They fight their way through the moss poppets spilling out of the entity and cut it down but it rises, greater and more terrible than before. A long fight ensues but the heroes triumphantly slay their foe an Rehka drags the corpse with them.  

They find Bethania standing very still, surrounded by winged figures of light. She warns them not to move but Peleus and Garrek make a run for it, which ends badly when they find their weapons merely pass through the creatures of light. With Rehka and Aldrich unwilling to risk moving at anything more than a very slow pace, Peleus and Garrek bleed out and die.

Accompanied by Bethania, Rehka and Aldrich make their way to a geode crevasse of burnished metal studded by razor-sharp crystals. A powerful wind howls through holes in the metal. Rehka drops the body of the forest creature and the three of them climb down slowly, using the force of the wind at the bottom to blow them across to a safe ledge where Aldrich conducts a ritual to bring the forest corpse to them.

Meanwhile, Peleus and Garrek awake nearby to a rather surprised Hana Ní Diarmada who opens a portal into Perfection to reunite the with the others. However, Law has caught up with them, supported by more Avatars of Purity. Law attempts to prevent the party leaving their jurisdiction and at first holds the party back, with Aldrich even being purified but eventually the party make a push for the portal and break through, stumbling out into Rom. 

===== Debrief =====
Between them, the party carry the giant form of the forest monstrosity out toward the Foresters Guild. They attract a lot of attention and very quickly gain an escort of watch officers and paladins. The Foresters Guild are grateful for the specimen and very interested to hear about where it came from. 

From there, the party return to Diarmada House in Rom and are led up to Zara’s solarium. It sounds like there’s an argument going on inside and raised voices can be heard. As you approach, the doors burst open and Hana Ní Diarmada storms out, looking red in the face. 

“She’s all yours, adventurers,” she says as she passes. 

Inside the solarium, Zara is waiting, reclining in a wicker chair. Bethania leans against the back. 

“Oh, there you are my dears,” Zara says. “I’m sure I owe you all an apology for my little ruse but I am quite sure you would never have agreed to it had I told you that you were going to a supposedly inescapable prison, now, would you? I don’t suppose you managed to get the gem on the way? No? Pity, but I suppose that is for the best and of course you have my gratitude for bringing my Bethania back to me.”

“And my gratitude,” Bethania adds, “it was getting quite tiresome in there.”

Zara smiles. “I’m sure you must have questions. Ask and I shall answer.”

[Debrief to be continued...]

==== Outcomes (subject to change until debrief completed) ====
===Everybody===
  * +3 Favour

===Aldrich===
  * -1 Favour
  * Perfection curse to be finalised
  * Glory's link to you via your familiar is slightly strengthened. It would now be a lot easier to open the connection further. The consequences would still be //serious//.
 
===Peleus Perin===
  * -1 Favour
  * +1 death

===Rehka===
  * Curio/Glory has retreated from your head, though a thread of connection remains which could be exploited in the future. There are no current negative effects from this and it counts as a feeble mind affliction for the purposes of removing it completely.

===Garrek===
  * +1 death

{{tag>"facets of perfection" rekha "peleus perin" "aldrich kamali" "garrek vow" adventure}}
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