✎ resources:adventure:words_left_unspoken [animus]

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====== Words Left Unspoken ======
===== Initial Brief =====
While [[resources:adventure:principle_of_heirarchy|infiltrating the False Empire]], Jasine was cursed by the High Archon which has caused her to suffer from frequent bursts of incapacitating pain. To escape this, she decided to use her Elect programming to dampen her emotions until the curse could be lifted. 

Certain individuals objected to this.
===== PCs =====
  * [[user:aleahas:pc:eli_jin|Eli]]
  * [[user:alexet:pc:garrek|Garrek]]
  * [[user:iain:pc:mabel_bembrooke|Mabel]]
  * [[user:g_b:pc:sato_cross|Sato]]
  * [[user:tomm:pc:suprema|Suprema]]

===== Summary =====
==== The Surface ====

Eli brings Garrek, Mabel and Suprema into Jasine's Mind and they immediately notice that it is wracked by frequent tremors. After they fight their way through a large, cold atrium filled with painful golden light, Eli warns everyone that they should remain calm - and then Sato suddenly appears beside her. Chaos ensues, but the party quickly realise that attacking each other may lead to less-than-ideal consequences for the stability of Jasine's Mind. A very, very temporary truce is formed.

The atrium exit is obscured by a heavy black curtain. When the party pass through it, they find themselves standing in a strange battlefield underneath five suns. Before them is a spherical machine which counts down to their demise. The party eventually realise that bizarrely, the only way to harm parts of the machine is to heal them, and by employing this technique they manage to finally defeat it.

The sphere inverts and the scene fades, returning the party to an icy corridor lined with recent memories. They view some of Jasine's surface thoughts and find that they are changed by the frost creeping along the walls: where Jasine once appeared in her own memories as a human, she is now represented by various weapons. The party recognise that the frost is a manifestation of Jasine's perception of herself as a tool rather than as a person, but this problem seems to be coming from far deeper in the Mind.

==== Reshaping ====

Pressing on into Jasine's Mind, the party reaches a vast chasm gouging through the landscape. The Mind appears to be trying to repair itself but all attempts to bridge the chasm are thwarted by searing golden light which holds the walls still. The party descends to a cavern built into the chasm, where they encounter the High Archon surrounded by the same golden light. The High Archon gloats that they are close to achieving their true purpose and that Jasine is approaching the same lofty goal, judging by the ice filling the Mind. The party defeats them and without their Perfection ritual keeping the chasm open, this part of Jasine's Mind successfully repairs itself and the tremors finally stop. 

However, the chasm closing above them plunges the party into darkness. As Mabel reaches out, a curtain is grasped and pulled aside... and the party seem to find themselves back in the office where they started. However, there are now two identical copies of Suprema in the room, and the Jasine standing in front of them has a strange spiral mark on her face. Jasine greets the party, speaking to them as if they have been hired for an important task. She seeks advice from both the party and the Suprema duplicate beside her; the latter seems unhappy with the current situation but is unable to communicate this. Undeterred from whatever plan she has in mind, Jasine guides the party to a banquet hall and orders them to kill everything inside - this "everything" is soon revealed to be a large gathering of two-headed purple people. Jasine employs inhumanly powerful combat abilities to destroy them despite the protests of many party members. 

The scene fades. Suprema, Sato and Eli all communicate with Jasine, and it becomes increasingly clear that Jas welcomes the changes occurring in her Mind - as she says, she alone has control over it and she actively looks forward to what she sees as the next stage in her development. The party eventually reach an obsidian wall; when they attempt to break through it, an army of patrolling Elect arrive to protect the Mind. Once the Elect have been defeated, the party manage to pass through the barrier and enter the next layer of the Mind.

==== Apotheosis ====

After a long, bitter conversation about Sato's many transgressions, the party descends to a small room coated in ice. Here, many versions of Jasine are hiding from an entity which apparently calls itself Apotheosis. The party speak with some of the Jasine lookalikes and find that they are all representations of what she could become - among them are a nomad in Eustragathi clothing, an Elect soldier, a truly devoted Wheel Paladin, a long-retired woman who seems content in domesticity, and a hostile figure in bloodstained clothes. Also present is a figure draped in many layers of clothing, who takes an interest in Suprema.

Before the party can press any further, the door to the room breaks down and two hulking crystalline figures enter. They appear to be manifestations of Apotheosis: a powerful and ruthless version of Jasine which cannot be swayed from what it sees as its true purpose. It speaks gleefully of its nature as an unstoppable weapon and attempts to kill the other, weaker facets of Jasine. The party manage to defend most of the facets, but the nomad, the Elect soldier, and an older Jasine die in the fight.

Having defeated Apotheosis, the party are approached by one of the variant Jasines: the quiet one who had previously spoken to Suprema. She guides them out of the room before changing her face to match Suprema's and leading the party through another curtain-covered doorway. The party are now in an extravagant ballroom filled with dancing couples. The face-changing individual walks to the centre of the room where Jasine is waiting - again, with a spiral mark on her face. They dance together, and Jasine appears surlier and more distrustful than she was before.

The Suprema duplicate insists that she believes Jasine to be on the right path and declares that they are indeed surrounded by traitors. Jasine then sees what she believes to be a concealed weapon and flies into a rage. Screaming at the guests for daring to conspire against their Regent, she attacks them all while begging the duplicate to protect her. Despite Sato's attempts to calm her, she then turns on the party. However, the duplicate - now identified by most as the Shroud - stops the vision. It is assumed that whatever is happening to Jasine in the present has already happened to the Silent Regent, to the apparent distress of the Shroud. 

==== The Core ====

Moving ahead, the party then encounter what appears to be the Wheel hovering by an Ichor fountain which is connected to many branching pipelines. This fountain is apparently the centre of Jasine's Elect programming - if the party wish to destroy it, Jasine will lose this part of herself. The party discuss with the Wheel whether or not this outcome would be healthier for Jas. They decide to shut down the pipeline and while this does nothing to the frost problem, it does appear to remove Jasine's Elect abilities. Unfortunately, during their attempts to deactivate the pipeline, several party members are struck by the Ichor pool and begin to hear the endless chant of the Elect in their own heads.

Finally, they reach the Mind's core, where the present form of Jasine is encasing herself in ice which streams from her eyes and fingertips. The party asks her to stop and she is confused, stating that she is merely fulfilling her purpose. Apotheosis - her final, truest form - will govern her mind as she gives herself over to be Shaped. The party try to convince her that she is following the wrong path, but she insists that this is the best way that she can serve Rastaban. In addition, after months of stripping away her own humanity, why should she stop now when such power lies at her fingertips? Surely Eli, considering her desperate attempts to be a loyal citizen, would desire the same for herself? Surely Sato, as a former Shaper, must understand? And regardless of how Suprema feels, would it really be so bad if Jasine were to erase her humanity and become something new?

The party refuse to give in to these arguments and Jasine is eventually talked into stopping her attempt to Shape herself. However, her previous decisions cannot be undone so easily. Apotheosis suddenly enters the Core and begins to attack Jasine by chaining her limbs with ice; having realised that she wants to fight this permanent change, Jasine asks the party for protection from Apotheosis. A series of Embraces are employed to give Jasine the freedom to move and fight, and Suprema takes the effects of the ice upon herself instead. After a long battle, they finally succeed in shattering the ice creatures. Long-overdue reunions occur and feelings are discussed.

With Jasine's Mind freed from her desire to give up her humanity, the ice lining the core finally cracks. As the frozen room begins to thaw, literal floods of suppressed emotion threaten the party - but they manage to hold back the waves and the emotions driving them in order to stabilise the Mind. Jasine and Sato reflect on the past, present and future of their relationship before everyone finally returns to their bodies.

Eli performs an Anointment to remove the Elect curse from Garrek, and the party agrees to return to the Imperial Bureaucracy... Arch-Traitor Sato Cross included.
===== Debrief (in progress) =====
The party notice that Jasine is now green as a result of some of Garrek's more questionable decisions while inside the core of her Mind. This is added to the list of issues to fix someday.

A Bureaucracy hit squad is hired to oversee their travel from the Order of the Wheel to the Bureaucracy. They're escorted into the Imperial Bureaucracy headquarters for debrief, where Suprema reveals everything to her superior, including the crimes of everyone she's travelling with.

Sato requests that her trial be held in the eyes of the Muses, as is her right as a Paladin. This seems reasonable, and she's separated from the group while she awaits trial.

Mabel begins defending herself before realising that she has been cleared of all charges of Treason and hasn't been accused of anything. She is allowed to remain at the  headquarters to give testimony about Garrek and Eli.

Garrek is questioned on his relationship with the Painter, the Emperor and his habit of colourising people. He claims that he feels negatively towards both the Painter and the Emperor and that he didn't mean to turn Jasine green. When offered the choice between painful death and a binding promise to oppose the Emperor and the Painter, Garrek instead demands an audience with Grandmaster Leymoon Wen. Leymoon tries to talk Garrek into signing the agreement so that he doesn't have to live as a fugitive, but Garrek turns the deal down. As punishment, Garrek is decapitated with his life preserved inside the head - but thanks to his Wheel abilities, he's able to escape. As a floating head. He then travels to Eustragath to ask about the spiral mark he saw on "Jasine's" face. As a floating head. He then goes to speak to Lyra the Blessed about the purple people he saw in the Shroud visions. As a floating head.

Eli, meanwhile, is defended from the accusations that she has been harbouring a traitor by Mabel, who insists that Sato has been imposing a significant amount of metaphysical control over her. She signs an agreement to never help Sato Cross again and a Throne Embrace is removed from her.

{{tag>"words left unspoken" adventure eli_jin garrek mabel_bembrooke sato_cross suprema}}
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