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--- resources:adventure:sanctuary [2018/06/06 18:10]
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+++ resources:adventure:sanctuary [2019/10/19 21:37] (current)
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 ===== Initial Brief =====
-The Foresters Guild is looking for intrepid individuals to accompany Torch paladin and scholar Sorin Luminova on an expedition into the Forest of Loss, to examine a site currently designated under Category E (//mysterious ruins, apparently ancient//) - which may offer us a singular tactical advantage in our efforts against the Forest. While a small garrison has been established at the site, applicants will be expected to accompany Luminova on any excursions they deem necessary during their time there, ultimately ensuring that they return to Rastaban unharmed.
+|The Foresters Guild is looking for intrepid individuals to accompany Torch paladin and scholar Sorin Luminova on an expedition into the Forest of Loss, to examine a site currently designated under Category E (//mysterious ruins, apparently ancient//) - which may offer us a singular tactical advantage in our efforts against the Forest. While a small garrison has been established at the site, applicants will be expected to accompany Luminova on any excursions they deem necessary during their time there, ultimately ensuring that they return to Rastaban unharmed.\\ \\ The Guild will be grateful for services rendered in this manner.|
-The Guild will be grateful for services rendered in this manner.
@@ Line 32: / Line 30: @@
 As they progress deeper into the Forest, our heroes notice that the trees are streaked with a slimy residue. Eli tastes a little of this substance - it seems to be fungal, and leaves Eli feeling strangely light-headed and disinclined to take the threat of their predicament seriously. Jeremiah is appalled, and fears that Eli has exposed herself to the Forest's malign influence. He takes a sap sample from Eli, noting that it seems more //viscous// than he might have anticipated... but then, he doesn't have much to compare it to. He takes a second sample from Gemini, noting that the two are of near-identical viscosity. Unbeknownst to Jeremiah and the rest of the party, Gemini has secretly sampled the slime as well... and is now feeling increasingly paranoid.
-Luminova provides an explanation for the slime on the trees: they've reached the edge of a fungal swamp, a particularly dangerous part of the forest. The directions they've been given is to wait at the edge of this swamp for Rotheld's scouts to meet them and provide them with safe passage to the garrison. Seeing no sign of these scouts, the party makes camp for the night, keeping watch in shifts. A little after midnight, they are assailed by unseen horrors that strike in darkness. The torches carried by Jeremiah and Luminova provide some protection against these creatures - but Gemini runs away from the circle of torchlight a number of times. At sunrise, the shadows retreat and Luminova once again expresses their distrust of the two Forest Touched, citing Gemini's actions during the night. Can Gemini and Eli truly be trusted, or should they be treated as traitors? A vote is taken, and although Elias shares Luminova's misgivings, the majority rules in favour of leniency.
+Luminova provides an explanation for the slime on the trees: they've reached the edge of a fungal swamp, a particularly dangerous part of the forest. The direction they've been given is to wait at the edge of this swamp for Rotheld's scouts to meet them and provide them with safe passage to the garrison. Seeing no sign of these scouts, the party makes camp for the night, keeping watch in shifts. A little after midnight, they are assailed by unseen horrors that strike in darkness. The torches carried by Jeremiah and Luminova provide some protection against these creatures - but Gemini runs away from the circle of torchlight a number of times. At sunrise, the shadows retreat and Luminova once again expresses their distrust of the two Forest Touched, citing Gemini's actions during the night. Can Gemini and Eli truly be trusted, or should they be treated as traitors? A vote is taken, and although Elias shares Luminova's misgivings, the majority rules in favour of leniency.
-==== To the Garrison ====
+==== The Fungal Grove ====
 Our heroes are, however, now faced with another dilemma: Rotheld's scouts still haven't materialised, raising concerns about the status of the garrison. Luminova makes the decision to press on through the swamp without outside aid, in the hope of locating the ruins and discovering the fate of Rotheld's team. Somewhat uneasily, the party makes its way into the fungal groves.
@@ Line 81: / Line 79: @@
 Luckily for our heroes, Rotheld currently has more to say than she has blood samples. They break free from her control, and attack her and her guards... while she drains the last drops from the cup in order to periodically compel them to obey her. It's a desperate battle, and in the confusion, someone manages to seize the goblet from Rotheld's grasp. Eli catches sight of the lone figure making a dash for the door - it's Gemini! While the others struggle with the last of Rotheld's guards, Eli and Luminova go after Gemini.
+==== Betrayed ====
 Gemini makes it to the surface, still clutching the goblet. It looks like all Rotheld's people have joined the fight in the sacrificial chamber, so Gemini has a clear path out of the garrison... but no. Blocking the gate is the distinctive figure of Doctor Pooter, who asks Gemini what exactly is going on. The Forest Touched tries to persuade Pooter to move aside, suggesting that Pooter's skills might be needed below ground... but realises that something is not quite right about the doctor. Pooter's broken arm is hanging out of its sling ever so slightly - at the shoulder. It seems to have detached itself from his body....
@@ Line 88: / Line 88: @@
 Pooter explains that he’s a Changeling who has cleverly managed to evade detection by Rotheld's team, and that the ruins never had any real control over the forest – they were just the remains of some old temple that the forest had moved here as a trap for anyone willing to take the bait. It is clear, however, that the forest now considers it necessary to eliminate the party to prevent Rastaban from gaining any knowledge of the Chalice. As the forest continues to encroach, our heroes make a desperate stand against Pooter. It's another hard-fought battle, but they at last emerge victorious - the changeling is dead.
+Exhausted, our heroes retreat to the ruins. Luminova lectures Jeremiah - they //told// him Gemini was going to betray the party, but he just wouldn't listen! Jeremiah accepts that he was wrong. The party makes its way back underground in order to rescue as many of Rotheld's unconscious guards as possible... but they find the inner sanctum choked with roots - the forest is at last laying claim to the ruins. There are no survivors, but Elias manages to make off with a number of artefacts scavenged from the ruins.
+Jeremiah examines Pooter's lab, finding bundles of notes taken, presumably, by the real Doctor Pooter. He also finds a crematorium and a couple of corpses that have yet to be burnt - each of them is missing an arm. It doesn't take much to work out what has been going on here: while out exploring a little over a week prior, it seems that Doctor Pooter was taken by the forest, presumably losing an arm in his final struggle. His changeling, therefore, also lacked its right arm, but was able to use the severed arm of another dead guard as a substitute – by cutting this arm during the gate checks, it was able to ‘bleed’ and gain entry to the garrison. Owing to the tendency of dead things to, well, //go off//, it frequently needed to acquire a new arm in order to maintain this deception - and was therefore quarantining and killing people in order to harvest their limbs.
+Having seen everything they care to see here, our heroes depart on the long road back to Rastaban.
 ===== Debrief =====
+It's a close thing, but Gemini somehow manages to find his way home through the Forest of Loss. He still has the cup - indeed, he's already taken the opportunity to drink from it - and it has in turn provided him with a series of visions. //I am the Chalice. I am a forgotten Muse. I need to be remembered. I need followers. Bring me followers. Do this and I will lend you my power.// Carefully hiding the cup, he makes his way back to the Foresters Guild to provide his report.
+By the time Jeremiah makes it to the Guild, however, Luminova and the rest of the party have already made their report. Most of those present have been fully willing to testify to Gemini's treachery; Eli's report, however, allows Gemini the benefit of the doubt - according to Eli, Gemini simply went mad when he touched the Chalice. Luminova, by contrast, is determined to see the treacherous, heretical Gemini brought to justice.
+Gemini has a lot of explaining to do. He doesn't help his case by fabricating a story about having bumped into a Torch Paladin called Do Not Hide The Light, who he says confiscated and pledged to destroy the Chalice, and who promised to go and save the others when Gemini - weak from running from the blasphemers - pleaded for them to do so. It does not take long for the Guild to establish that there are no records of a Torch Paladin by the name Do Not Hide The Light. Gemini is subjected to enhanced interrogation using methods that all concerned find, ah, rather //unpleasant//. When an explanation of his flight is demanded, he pleads that when he ran, everyone else was on the floor and he considered that protecting the Sanctity of the Muses should be a priority. He didn't wait up top because Doctor Pooter was advancing on him and he knew he couldn't take the Doctor and the approaching Forest, but COULD outrun them... he explains, between various loud expostulations.
+In the end, the Guild finds itself unable to prove Gemini's guilt. He is put on probation - he will be watched closely, and must prove himself a model citizen. Should he bring the Guild into disrepute ever again, its protection Will Be Withdrawn. It is perfectly clear what the loss of the Guild's favour would mean for Gemini - an immediate end to any privileges he currently enjoys, including life.
+Lyra, meanwhile, makes a brief foray back into the fungal part of the forest and bursts a puffball, being careful to hold her breath and minimise skin contact with the spores. She has brought a large jar, which she uses to collect as many spores as possible. Upon sealing it securely (and after washing herself thoroughly), she takes a look at her acquisition. It's quite pretty, up close - like an extremely deadly snow globe.
+Eli wanders the Foresters Guild, looking for an older Forest Touched, one who doesn't need to sleep, who might be willing to talk to her about the Plane of Dreams. She develops a rapport with such a person, and through extended discussions is able to establish quite definitely that the Plane of Dreams is where a person's mind goes when they sleep, although most people are oblivious to this fact. It seems that broadcasting this discovery might prove unwise....
+Elias spends a constructive few days studying the various items he hauled out of the inner sanctum - such things much be of academic interest, surely? His investigations allow him to illuminate a little more of the nature of the Cult of the Chalice. It would seem that the cult originated somewhere far from Rastaban; it was divided into a rigid hierarchy and seems to have been based around the ritual consumption of blood. Aware that the possession of such items might be frowned upon by the city authorities, Elias considers fencing them... but settles on hiding them securely until he has more understanding of the black market.
+In very, very carefully sterile lab conditions, Jeremiah investigates the four blood samples he took: from Pooter's changeling; from Butterwort right before he was executed; and from the two Forest Touched. His aim is to look for any differences between the blood from Butterworth, someone just having been seized by the Forest, to the blood from the doctor, someone who had succumbed about a week prior - with a view towards gaining some understanding of the physical change a body undergoes during Forest possession. He looks at the Forest Touched blood to see if there is any noticeable difference between this and the other samples. He also checks the residue from the bottle of supposed sedative that Pooter gave him. Having realised that this only served to accelerate the possession process, rendering poor Butterwort entirely unable to fight the forest.
+He notes certain similarities in the composition of all of these samples - that is, they all contain something absent from normal human blood samples, something he can only really describe as forest contamination. Of the samples at his disposal, the 'sedative' contains the highest concentration of this contamination, followed by the changeling blood, then Butterwort's blood, and then that of the two forest touched. In Jeremiah's estimation, forest 'possession' seems to work in the following way: the forest infects a person, kills them, and then corrupts their body. It would seem that it is only at the point of death that someone is definitively and completely beyond redemption.
+Gemini, meanwhile, makes his way back to the clever little hiding place he has found for the goblet. With no small satisfaction at his unlikely reprieve from death, he folds his hands around his prize and prepares to commune with the Chalice....
 ===== Consequences =====
@@ Line 129: / Line 155: @@
   * Gains a jar of spores.
-{{tag>"sanctuary" adventure eli_jin elias_of_estaban gemini_doubt jasine jeremiah_stingelhelm kaeris_oriole lyra_averick}}
+{{tag>"sanctuary" adventure eli_jin "elias_of_esteban" gemini_doubt jasine jeremiah_stingelhelm kaeris_oriole lyra_averick}}

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