Post by Dr. Osmond Sterm on May 12, 2018 22:35:07 GMT -5
The turning of this expedition is extreme. Honestly, my head is spinning from all the conspiracy and thought. So where to start... I suppose I should start at the very beginning. I do not know if I can fill out my full experience, but I will try to walk my path to the fullest Truth.
When I arrived in Abhien, we start with a worrying sign. Right on the floor, a symbol is drawn in chalk. The thaumaturgical symbol for a mark. We knew what was wrong and tried to scuff it up. But as it would turn out we were too late. 3 squad burst through the sign. Separatists armed to the teeth. Ready to fight and die.
While we brought them down easily... it becomes clear. With the help of the Scarlet Choir, the war had changed. Their forces have remote drops, Thaumaturgical Teleportation in a burst would be a deadly tool in the oncoming conflict. we must be wary.
Meeting new members.
After we were attacked I was kind of on edge. Resting outside, not because of the actual attack but it spoke to a development of tactics that the separatists had previously not had. They would definitely seem to be getting their money's worth.
But as I sat on the lookout, with a cigarette summoning back my nerves. I saw figures moving on the edge of the blight zone. Instinct kicked in as I put out my death stick, taking away all visible sign. And listened, armed and ready to go. *Bang* A gun discharged and I was off at a run to check the scenario. 4 new faces with the Warden, under attack from fish people.
But by the time I got there they had cleaned up.
Blight heart
The blight "Heart" is a complicated subject that I honestly know only bits and pieces about. I suppose we should start with what it looks like l. Picture a corrupted tree growth. The kind of thing that a tree grows to protect from infection.
It was found in a tree south of Abhien. It was taken from Thaumaturgist experimenting with something. I was present for the seizure of the first one. But picture pitched combatant blight ghouls. All in all this was surprising when they Isolated it in the crafting building. It was... almost alive.
Over the weekend a number of tests were performed by the mages. I'm going to skip to the results and my add circles later. But the evidence points to a few things, it has a choir of sentience. This was shown when Ahri made contact with it's consciousness.
Dream
Late on Friday, as I dozed in the tavern lightly. I was met by a spirit, who shocked me into readiness. The guide was a shadow of a figure with the leg brace identical to the mayor and his cane. He looked through me and asked, "Will you bare witness?"
"Yes" and we were off to gather the others, and when we were assembled the team was Lupo, Fadri and I. Then we were put unconscious and found ourselves wandering in the darkness, but soon as we marched our way to a hall, down the sides were 4 glowing red door ways with Roses in front of them.
The guide looked at us and informed us specifically, we are here to bear witness. We could not change anything that we saw or anything that happens while we are here. Before we could really asking anything we heard gun fire.
The First Room
The figure in the room was a man in a Brown Trench Coat and a Trilby hat that matched. He stood in the middle of a war zone. Whirling around, gun in hand, he fired off a few rounds. This was all in vain as smoke grenades flushed the area, as the man was stunned and slain in one swift breath. I believe the phrase uttered between the 3 of us was OOO THAT'S NOT GOOD…. I don't know if everyone knows the symptoms of dying to gas, well it's kind of horrifying.
After he had fallen, we were washed over by a vision surrounded by a murder of crows (A symbol from our Lucid dreaming of Secrets and Death).
Second room
Then we went to the second room. At the entrance stood an ethane woman in a kimono( this one was clearly Sakura). The scene was set as the diplomatic tea ceremony.
She spoke directly to a character that was behind us in the scene. "These are our rivals and equals, and not our lesser, and the blood you make me spill is of my people. Enjoy your wealth."
She then ran herself through the stomach with a knife. And she died.
As we entered the Dagger was clearly visible on the ground, the room still set to honor guests. Walking the room I was surrounded by the Visages of Joy and Fear dancing around us. A symbol of the Shadow Dancer and of Drama. I also felt the slithering of snakes all around me.
Third room
What looked like an Ethani female who identified herself as "king." Welcomed a man into her home, we could not see him. The woman identified him, the individual we couldn't see, as Sir Evergreen.
They seemed to have a pleasant time till she called him out for having something. She raged at him screaming "why do you have that?" and "The others won't accept it." Then she died.
After we walked the scene, there was a lot of details missing, but somethings stood out. There was a broken shrine made up of a book that was stabbed by a book. And the statue of a woman, unidentified. Corks littered the ground specked in blood.
And as we looked around the room I…. Well like I was freefalling. The most intense vertigo I had ever experienced.
Fourth room
Now before I get to the fourth room there are a number of details I find to be important to remind people. First, our guide stands with the Mayor's cane and brace, tone shifts. He gains a personality as he turns to us and says, "did you hear that?" We fell silent and ears perked up. Nothing.... And he looks around, the familiar look of a man running on his gut. "Stay here," he said. "I'll check it out." leg brace and cane other than that the person seems to be a shadow, body, and face of black shadowy form. We step out from the third room, and the guide looks at us and asks, "Do you hear that?" The three of us stopped and listened and heard nothing. He looked back towards the entrance then looking back at us he says, "Wait here I'll check it out." And for me at least, I'm slightly on edge.
He entered into a practiced defensive stride. And approached the final glowing rose, looking in both directions he crossed the threshold.
We then heard our guide scream, or holler, and run over to the last rose. I pushed against the barrier as I tried to make my way into to the room, to try and take every detail in the room as it happens, but I could not force my way in. We were only there to bare witness, and so we did as our guide was ritually sacrificed, his cane snapping under his weight. And then just before us, he died. And we heard a choir of voices chanting 4 lines, unfortunately, we only have 3:
"Form of the Formless,
Shape of the Shapeless,
Blood of Kings,
_______________"
We know that there are 4 lines. We could not, for the life of us, remember the last one.
Inquisitor Francis C Clarke
With wolf mask on his belt and the straight stature of a military man. Francis C Clarke walks with purpose, grace in the stride. And when he first arrived he limited contact. Isolating me to gather an understanding of the current situation. He was completely unarmed, but at no point was I of the belief that he was not dangerous. As a member of the inquisition, it was made clear that he could speak to his colleagues on our behalf or against us.
It is important to note about the Inquisition, firstly there are multiple orders of the Inquisition of Altina. Each one is named after a Sin (Apathy, Pride, Wrath, Ignorance, Cowardice, Lust, and Greed). After being entered into the Inquisition they are placed in the order which represents their greatest sin, they then work together to not fall to it. In the case of Inquisitor Francis C Clarke, he is a member of the Order of Wrath. They are primarily used as an investigative and intelligence body in the Inquisition, many members making pacts of non-violence with Altina. It is also important to note within this existing government body, there is also the distinct belief that the Expedition is a group of out of control apostates with no understanding the power we are dealing with and lack all responsibility of the situation.
And in many ways this was kind of what they feared, we had discovered a substantial shrine to the Sin of Greed. A golden skull chalice set upon a pedestal of gold, filled with ancient coins with a skull upon it. We had taken it from it's place of rest without knowing its purpose and as it happens everything went awry when it came back to town. The entirety of the of the night after we found, including town action and the lesser sins of Greed, was witnessed by at minimum 6 individuals of Significance in the Commonwealth.
Fortunately, he gave us the benefit of the doubt. Not seeing our actions as purposeful sin worship, we were safe from judgment for now. Ignorant yes, Stupid definitely, but we were unaware of the actions taken and not directly responsible. Dravail, on the other hand, will need to bring us the coins or we can go no further. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Drakes
Now during Saturday Drake's wandered into town which isn't usually a matter of importance. But this was different. On a normal day, they show up and play with Rashaad. If they attack us we can usually dispense with them. Unfortunately, they had taken the greed shrine so when they returned Larger, stronger and some were golden. With the town's help, it wasn't difficult. And as a matter of importance, we autopsied the gold Drakes to see if they were the same as the standard green Drakes.
Our results made it clear they weren't. They have hard exoskeleton s of what appears to be fools gold. Internally they lacked all organs and instead filled with liquid fools gold. It makes it clear the results of worship of a Greed shrine, almost making them a golden husk. Now importantly a Drake's intelligence is developed enough to make choices, but leaves them prone to attacks like a greed shrine's temptation. I will need to begin a full Beast folio in the future.
In the afternoon, Inquisitor Francis returned to town with the location of the Drake nest. We rallied a team together made up of Commonwealth members, the Vellecians, Rashaad, and Arraris. Fadri performed a rite to Altina and we were off.
When we approached a very large pool of lava. A number of areas had cooled into areas where we can cross, but not from where we were. Looking around we found a weakened cave wall and punched through it. Crawling in the darkens of the cavern praying for no weak points and fortunately I found my way to another wall that was weak. And if I'm honest I simply tripped and fell head first through it. I scurried to my feet and stuck to the entrance looking around. 3 golden Drake's waded through the lava. I knew that they had some resistance, but that's more intense than I expected.
As the team started to gather, I tasted bitter in my mouth. As I went through the tally of what I had and checked my arms. It was now or never. And I launched myself on the first stone then to the second, the smell of burning leather filling my nose as I missed a step and stumbled on to the next stone. I looked to my left and the Drake's had started to swarm. I moved to a larger stone and started to hold one off. While looking at the scene and my gut kind of sank. We were still moving to slow. So with the team pulling up my rear I hustled through the next 10 and got the ramp. I drew attacks to me while others crossed.
On Drake reared its head and spit flames that slammed into my shield. I was kind of shocked. As again and again the flames came, and members of the expedition started to pass behind me. Led by Arraris they performed a gate breach bursting into a cavern on our side of the pool, finding the Drakes 6 strong with 3 golden Drake's with them. Oakheart, and Arraris shored up a wall while Rashaad swept in seized the greed shrine and the golden eggs, the Drake's offerings to the shrine. and he bolted. The other members started to pile out and I realized our shields were missing.
I turned on my heel and charged back into the nest and there they were in a last stand formation in the corner drawing the Drake's all on top of them. I knew that this was not a fight we could keep up, but we weren't about to leave a man behind.
I yelled for the team to rally back and make a hole and assumed a full defense as 3 pinned me to a wall. But fortunately, reinforcements pushed in and made a hole before I fell.
As we got, out Ryel laid down cover fire from the high ground as we escaped. And as I crossed the last stone to safety I felt my ankle give. I fucking hate old age. I stood in the doorway covering the last of the team's escape and then I crawled out.
I collapsed in safety and knew that this probably wasn't the end. We still needed to deal with the rite. But in that moment I felt alive.
Rite to destroy the greed shrine
Now after receiving the shrine we performed a rite to destroy it, but ran into a problem. Without the coins, we had a lot of risk to attempting at all. So the quandary comes into play of how to diminish this risk as much as feasibly possible. And there were a number of ideas for this, producing a rite to grant the participant's protections was a promising one, but the depth and difficulty to performing such rites in tandem are pretty high. The next was thaumaturgical, but without knowing what the backlash from the shrine would be beforehand it puts us in a pickle of what to defend against. But in religious rites, an important note for a nubile practitioner, a symbol if utilized properly can do the trick. For us we had the Golden Drake eggs.
We found the eggs in the chalice of the shrine in the drake nest. Showing that this was their sacrifice to the shrine and the price that they were willing to pay. This was a potent representation of their greed and literal sacrifice. So in our case, we structured our rite to use the eggs instead of the coins. Leaving them in the chalice and powering it as a destructor.
While I can't put in the full rite that was performed by a number of members of the town, I can point to the gods:
Dae'run
Altina
Raveda
I call to the lord of Roses, who grants his children the warm embrace, who protects them as they sleep, and carries them as they fall. I beseech you now.
Dae'run, there is a monster in your garden, beast that steals and preys upon your roses. A vermin that taints the field and takes those that would come into your protection and turns your children hollow, reaps them body and soul.
Here we stand at the altar of those beasts, these monsters, the vermin, the source of their power. I implore you now grant us the power to destroy this shrine and remove greed from this place. To make safe your children, to remove the plague upon the land and let your garden grow. I beg of you bring down your staff, your judgement upon this Greed, this shrine, these demons, and show your children safe once more. They are under you Protection. DAE'RUN DELIVER US FROM THIS EVIL.
- An excerpt from the destroying of the Greed Shrine, performed and written by Dr. Osmond Sterm
Blight and ley lines
Though many items were gathered on this expedition none were quite as odd as the blighted heart that we gathered. We found it apparently on Friday night, while the expedition interrupted and stole this magical item from a ritual that was apparently performed upon a let line, a source of magical power often running through the ground. I do not understand the thaumaturgical principle of its creation, but it has the thaumaturgical properties of every element.
This thing reminded me of 2 things visually it had the veins and shape of a heart. It also deeply reminds me of the sickly knot. Any time energy goes in and attacks it, it exhales a storm of energy. But after all the symbols and tests. Theories and troubles, they made contact. The heart had sentience and like a choir of children, it sang into the mind of Ari. It warned of a brother to come, made of the same kind in the same kind of act.
We sent out scouts and rushed to the site to find that in the darkness of night a group had gathered where the first hat had been found, there are a number of important notes to this encounter. First, there was a mix of many kinds of creatures, Blighted and 2 Thaumaturges made up the primary force.
There was also a mysterious monster that had pale skin, its eyes were made of 2 shapes one green, the other pale yellow. On its back were wing-like appendages with what was the texture of seaweed. A pestilent green light that marked it as a blighted one was radiating off of it. It's Thaumaturgical Classification is MONSTER, as discovered through bane testing. It's vision is severely impaired at night and would at least appear to be attracted to light, on the field the brightest thing around me was my shield though I would be around a lot of people and it would remain its focus for a while. Though the most terrifying thing that came up was this Monster was that it had a chameleon like way of straight up disappearing, or going invisible. I honestly want to capture it in an attempt to purify it, but I suppose that this approach will take many attempts later.
The battlefield was slick from the foggy woods, and as we crossed the threshold of the field all of these forces swarmed us. We were able to establish a barrier of shields, and force to hold. I took time to Silence the Thaumaturge for as long as I could and as loud as I could, bolstering our line with the holy blessings of Avesta. And while we held the line, the mages acted boldly taking the handling of such things unto themselves and removing this item from the open.
Even still there were some curious things presented to us in the scene. Firstly unlike more modern thaumaturgy, these practitioners utilized medieval, or at the very least uncommon, blight containment practices. In this case a literal blight cauldron was present at the tree when we got there. This second heart physically bound to the tree, as far as I could tell.
This moves me to another important fact of location, which was important. But we didn't know until after. Deep into the night as we rested ourselves we saw, the familiar blue of the Maiden of the Spring. Which needs a decent amount explanation, on it's own. As a note, it may be important to make a case file for each individual Fey, their territories and natures. Simply slaying them with good old-fashioned steel is not sufficient to killing them. But as we saw the last expedition thaumaturgical fey bane is sufficient. I need to learn a methodology for runic implementation.
Any way specifically in the case of the Maiden of the Spring, she still has spirits bound to her. While we broke her madness with divine assistance, they are bound here until they release themselves for whatever reason they are bound, some like the lovers have a feeling of being incomplete so we married them. I bring this up because I this case the maiden brought us to 2 spirits, they were researchers from ancient times looking for let lines, or more specifically veins. While I couldn't see it they utilized mathematics to calculate the position of significant nodes, or power. But it was almost like they were expecting a marker, or something that said source of power stands here. Little did they know they we're leaning against the very tree. They were going to use it for something important but before they could speak about that they wandered off frustrated, and into the embrace of Dae'run.
When I arrived in Abhien, we start with a worrying sign. Right on the floor, a symbol is drawn in chalk. The thaumaturgical symbol for a mark. We knew what was wrong and tried to scuff it up. But as it would turn out we were too late. 3 squad burst through the sign. Separatists armed to the teeth. Ready to fight and die.
While we brought them down easily... it becomes clear. With the help of the Scarlet Choir, the war had changed. Their forces have remote drops, Thaumaturgical Teleportation in a burst would be a deadly tool in the oncoming conflict. we must be wary.
Meeting new members.
After we were attacked I was kind of on edge. Resting outside, not because of the actual attack but it spoke to a development of tactics that the separatists had previously not had. They would definitely seem to be getting their money's worth.
But as I sat on the lookout, with a cigarette summoning back my nerves. I saw figures moving on the edge of the blight zone. Instinct kicked in as I put out my death stick, taking away all visible sign. And listened, armed and ready to go. *Bang* A gun discharged and I was off at a run to check the scenario. 4 new faces with the Warden, under attack from fish people.
But by the time I got there they had cleaned up.
Blight heart
The blight "Heart" is a complicated subject that I honestly know only bits and pieces about. I suppose we should start with what it looks like l. Picture a corrupted tree growth. The kind of thing that a tree grows to protect from infection.
It was found in a tree south of Abhien. It was taken from Thaumaturgist experimenting with something. I was present for the seizure of the first one. But picture pitched combatant blight ghouls. All in all this was surprising when they Isolated it in the crafting building. It was... almost alive.
Over the weekend a number of tests were performed by the mages. I'm going to skip to the results and my add circles later. But the evidence points to a few things, it has a choir of sentience. This was shown when Ahri made contact with it's consciousness.
Dream
Late on Friday, as I dozed in the tavern lightly. I was met by a spirit, who shocked me into readiness. The guide was a shadow of a figure with the leg brace identical to the mayor and his cane. He looked through me and asked, "Will you bare witness?"
"Yes" and we were off to gather the others, and when we were assembled the team was Lupo, Fadri and I. Then we were put unconscious and found ourselves wandering in the darkness, but soon as we marched our way to a hall, down the sides were 4 glowing red door ways with Roses in front of them.
The guide looked at us and informed us specifically, we are here to bear witness. We could not change anything that we saw or anything that happens while we are here. Before we could really asking anything we heard gun fire.
The First Room
The figure in the room was a man in a Brown Trench Coat and a Trilby hat that matched. He stood in the middle of a war zone. Whirling around, gun in hand, he fired off a few rounds. This was all in vain as smoke grenades flushed the area, as the man was stunned and slain in one swift breath. I believe the phrase uttered between the 3 of us was OOO THAT'S NOT GOOD…. I don't know if everyone knows the symptoms of dying to gas, well it's kind of horrifying.
After he had fallen, we were washed over by a vision surrounded by a murder of crows (A symbol from our Lucid dreaming of Secrets and Death).
Second room
Then we went to the second room. At the entrance stood an ethane woman in a kimono( this one was clearly Sakura). The scene was set as the diplomatic tea ceremony.
She spoke directly to a character that was behind us in the scene. "These are our rivals and equals, and not our lesser, and the blood you make me spill is of my people. Enjoy your wealth."
She then ran herself through the stomach with a knife. And she died.
As we entered the Dagger was clearly visible on the ground, the room still set to honor guests. Walking the room I was surrounded by the Visages of Joy and Fear dancing around us. A symbol of the Shadow Dancer and of Drama. I also felt the slithering of snakes all around me.
Third room
What looked like an Ethani female who identified herself as "king." Welcomed a man into her home, we could not see him. The woman identified him, the individual we couldn't see, as Sir Evergreen.
They seemed to have a pleasant time till she called him out for having something. She raged at him screaming "why do you have that?" and "The others won't accept it." Then she died.
After we walked the scene, there was a lot of details missing, but somethings stood out. There was a broken shrine made up of a book that was stabbed by a book. And the statue of a woman, unidentified. Corks littered the ground specked in blood.
And as we looked around the room I…. Well like I was freefalling. The most intense vertigo I had ever experienced.
Fourth room
Now before I get to the fourth room there are a number of details I find to be important to remind people. First, our guide stands with the Mayor's cane and brace, tone shifts. He gains a personality as he turns to us and says, "did you hear that?" We fell silent and ears perked up. Nothing.... And he looks around, the familiar look of a man running on his gut. "Stay here," he said. "I'll check it out." leg brace and cane other than that the person seems to be a shadow, body, and face of black shadowy form. We step out from the third room, and the guide looks at us and asks, "Do you hear that?" The three of us stopped and listened and heard nothing. He looked back towards the entrance then looking back at us he says, "Wait here I'll check it out." And for me at least, I'm slightly on edge.
He entered into a practiced defensive stride. And approached the final glowing rose, looking in both directions he crossed the threshold.
We then heard our guide scream, or holler, and run over to the last rose. I pushed against the barrier as I tried to make my way into to the room, to try and take every detail in the room as it happens, but I could not force my way in. We were only there to bare witness, and so we did as our guide was ritually sacrificed, his cane snapping under his weight. And then just before us, he died. And we heard a choir of voices chanting 4 lines, unfortunately, we only have 3:
"Form of the Formless,
Shape of the Shapeless,
Blood of Kings,
_______________"
We know that there are 4 lines. We could not, for the life of us, remember the last one.
Inquisitor Francis C Clarke
With wolf mask on his belt and the straight stature of a military man. Francis C Clarke walks with purpose, grace in the stride. And when he first arrived he limited contact. Isolating me to gather an understanding of the current situation. He was completely unarmed, but at no point was I of the belief that he was not dangerous. As a member of the inquisition, it was made clear that he could speak to his colleagues on our behalf or against us.
It is important to note about the Inquisition, firstly there are multiple orders of the Inquisition of Altina. Each one is named after a Sin (Apathy, Pride, Wrath, Ignorance, Cowardice, Lust, and Greed). After being entered into the Inquisition they are placed in the order which represents their greatest sin, they then work together to not fall to it. In the case of Inquisitor Francis C Clarke, he is a member of the Order of Wrath. They are primarily used as an investigative and intelligence body in the Inquisition, many members making pacts of non-violence with Altina. It is also important to note within this existing government body, there is also the distinct belief that the Expedition is a group of out of control apostates with no understanding the power we are dealing with and lack all responsibility of the situation.
And in many ways this was kind of what they feared, we had discovered a substantial shrine to the Sin of Greed. A golden skull chalice set upon a pedestal of gold, filled with ancient coins with a skull upon it. We had taken it from it's place of rest without knowing its purpose and as it happens everything went awry when it came back to town. The entirety of the of the night after we found, including town action and the lesser sins of Greed, was witnessed by at minimum 6 individuals of Significance in the Commonwealth.
Fortunately, he gave us the benefit of the doubt. Not seeing our actions as purposeful sin worship, we were safe from judgment for now. Ignorant yes, Stupid definitely, but we were unaware of the actions taken and not directly responsible. Dravail, on the other hand, will need to bring us the coins or we can go no further. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Drakes
Now during Saturday Drake's wandered into town which isn't usually a matter of importance. But this was different. On a normal day, they show up and play with Rashaad. If they attack us we can usually dispense with them. Unfortunately, they had taken the greed shrine so when they returned Larger, stronger and some were golden. With the town's help, it wasn't difficult. And as a matter of importance, we autopsied the gold Drakes to see if they were the same as the standard green Drakes.
Our results made it clear they weren't. They have hard exoskeleton s of what appears to be fools gold. Internally they lacked all organs and instead filled with liquid fools gold. It makes it clear the results of worship of a Greed shrine, almost making them a golden husk. Now importantly a Drake's intelligence is developed enough to make choices, but leaves them prone to attacks like a greed shrine's temptation. I will need to begin a full Beast folio in the future.
In the afternoon, Inquisitor Francis returned to town with the location of the Drake nest. We rallied a team together made up of Commonwealth members, the Vellecians, Rashaad, and Arraris. Fadri performed a rite to Altina and we were off.
When we approached a very large pool of lava. A number of areas had cooled into areas where we can cross, but not from where we were. Looking around we found a weakened cave wall and punched through it. Crawling in the darkens of the cavern praying for no weak points and fortunately I found my way to another wall that was weak. And if I'm honest I simply tripped and fell head first through it. I scurried to my feet and stuck to the entrance looking around. 3 golden Drake's waded through the lava. I knew that they had some resistance, but that's more intense than I expected.
As the team started to gather, I tasted bitter in my mouth. As I went through the tally of what I had and checked my arms. It was now or never. And I launched myself on the first stone then to the second, the smell of burning leather filling my nose as I missed a step and stumbled on to the next stone. I looked to my left and the Drake's had started to swarm. I moved to a larger stone and started to hold one off. While looking at the scene and my gut kind of sank. We were still moving to slow. So with the team pulling up my rear I hustled through the next 10 and got the ramp. I drew attacks to me while others crossed.
On Drake reared its head and spit flames that slammed into my shield. I was kind of shocked. As again and again the flames came, and members of the expedition started to pass behind me. Led by Arraris they performed a gate breach bursting into a cavern on our side of the pool, finding the Drakes 6 strong with 3 golden Drake's with them. Oakheart, and Arraris shored up a wall while Rashaad swept in seized the greed shrine and the golden eggs, the Drake's offerings to the shrine. and he bolted. The other members started to pile out and I realized our shields were missing.
I turned on my heel and charged back into the nest and there they were in a last stand formation in the corner drawing the Drake's all on top of them. I knew that this was not a fight we could keep up, but we weren't about to leave a man behind.
I yelled for the team to rally back and make a hole and assumed a full defense as 3 pinned me to a wall. But fortunately, reinforcements pushed in and made a hole before I fell.
As we got, out Ryel laid down cover fire from the high ground as we escaped. And as I crossed the last stone to safety I felt my ankle give. I fucking hate old age. I stood in the doorway covering the last of the team's escape and then I crawled out.
I collapsed in safety and knew that this probably wasn't the end. We still needed to deal with the rite. But in that moment I felt alive.
Rite to destroy the greed shrine
Now after receiving the shrine we performed a rite to destroy it, but ran into a problem. Without the coins, we had a lot of risk to attempting at all. So the quandary comes into play of how to diminish this risk as much as feasibly possible. And there were a number of ideas for this, producing a rite to grant the participant's protections was a promising one, but the depth and difficulty to performing such rites in tandem are pretty high. The next was thaumaturgical, but without knowing what the backlash from the shrine would be beforehand it puts us in a pickle of what to defend against. But in religious rites, an important note for a nubile practitioner, a symbol if utilized properly can do the trick. For us we had the Golden Drake eggs.
We found the eggs in the chalice of the shrine in the drake nest. Showing that this was their sacrifice to the shrine and the price that they were willing to pay. This was a potent representation of their greed and literal sacrifice. So in our case, we structured our rite to use the eggs instead of the coins. Leaving them in the chalice and powering it as a destructor.
While I can't put in the full rite that was performed by a number of members of the town, I can point to the gods:
Dae'run
Altina
Raveda
I call to the lord of Roses, who grants his children the warm embrace, who protects them as they sleep, and carries them as they fall. I beseech you now.
Dae'run, there is a monster in your garden, beast that steals and preys upon your roses. A vermin that taints the field and takes those that would come into your protection and turns your children hollow, reaps them body and soul.
Here we stand at the altar of those beasts, these monsters, the vermin, the source of their power. I implore you now grant us the power to destroy this shrine and remove greed from this place. To make safe your children, to remove the plague upon the land and let your garden grow. I beg of you bring down your staff, your judgement upon this Greed, this shrine, these demons, and show your children safe once more. They are under you Protection. DAE'RUN DELIVER US FROM THIS EVIL.
- An excerpt from the destroying of the Greed Shrine, performed and written by Dr. Osmond Sterm
Blight and ley lines
Though many items were gathered on this expedition none were quite as odd as the blighted heart that we gathered. We found it apparently on Friday night, while the expedition interrupted and stole this magical item from a ritual that was apparently performed upon a let line, a source of magical power often running through the ground. I do not understand the thaumaturgical principle of its creation, but it has the thaumaturgical properties of every element.
This thing reminded me of 2 things visually it had the veins and shape of a heart. It also deeply reminds me of the sickly knot. Any time energy goes in and attacks it, it exhales a storm of energy. But after all the symbols and tests. Theories and troubles, they made contact. The heart had sentience and like a choir of children, it sang into the mind of Ari. It warned of a brother to come, made of the same kind in the same kind of act.
We sent out scouts and rushed to the site to find that in the darkness of night a group had gathered where the first hat had been found, there are a number of important notes to this encounter. First, there was a mix of many kinds of creatures, Blighted and 2 Thaumaturges made up the primary force.
There was also a mysterious monster that had pale skin, its eyes were made of 2 shapes one green, the other pale yellow. On its back were wing-like appendages with what was the texture of seaweed. A pestilent green light that marked it as a blighted one was radiating off of it. It's Thaumaturgical Classification is MONSTER, as discovered through bane testing. It's vision is severely impaired at night and would at least appear to be attracted to light, on the field the brightest thing around me was my shield though I would be around a lot of people and it would remain its focus for a while. Though the most terrifying thing that came up was this Monster was that it had a chameleon like way of straight up disappearing, or going invisible. I honestly want to capture it in an attempt to purify it, but I suppose that this approach will take many attempts later.
The battlefield was slick from the foggy woods, and as we crossed the threshold of the field all of these forces swarmed us. We were able to establish a barrier of shields, and force to hold. I took time to Silence the Thaumaturge for as long as I could and as loud as I could, bolstering our line with the holy blessings of Avesta. And while we held the line, the mages acted boldly taking the handling of such things unto themselves and removing this item from the open.
Even still there were some curious things presented to us in the scene. Firstly unlike more modern thaumaturgy, these practitioners utilized medieval, or at the very least uncommon, blight containment practices. In this case a literal blight cauldron was present at the tree when we got there. This second heart physically bound to the tree, as far as I could tell.
This moves me to another important fact of location, which was important. But we didn't know until after. Deep into the night as we rested ourselves we saw, the familiar blue of the Maiden of the Spring. Which needs a decent amount explanation, on it's own. As a note, it may be important to make a case file for each individual Fey, their territories and natures. Simply slaying them with good old-fashioned steel is not sufficient to killing them. But as we saw the last expedition thaumaturgical fey bane is sufficient. I need to learn a methodology for runic implementation.
Any way specifically in the case of the Maiden of the Spring, she still has spirits bound to her. While we broke her madness with divine assistance, they are bound here until they release themselves for whatever reason they are bound, some like the lovers have a feeling of being incomplete so we married them. I bring this up because I this case the maiden brought us to 2 spirits, they were researchers from ancient times looking for let lines, or more specifically veins. While I couldn't see it they utilized mathematics to calculate the position of significant nodes, or power. But it was almost like they were expecting a marker, or something that said source of power stands here. Little did they know they we're leaning against the very tree. They were going to use it for something important but before they could speak about that they wandered off frustrated, and into the embrace of Dae'run.