Session 8: The Stain in Quelimane

Part 1

The party set out for Quelimane bringing food to help the people stranded there since the outbreak of the famine, with the help of the Defiant.

While the Defiant and crew distributed food, the party investigated to try to find the source of the famine. They tracked the outbreak to Tulley Farm, where they found a portal to the Fade lying open at the bottom of a well, alongside a corpse seemingly murdered by blunt force to the back of the head.

Part 2

Having located another tower in the Fade through the gate in the well, our heroes recruited more participants for the ritual of bonding.

Lorenzo convinced new friend Deacon to come along, and Deacon dragged his Defiant allies Elise and Dirk with as well.

Jack tricked Wit via a magically-tilted bet, which Wit will surely be sore about once he puts the pieces together.

Daz joined up as well, totally stoked to meet the central figure of the cult at last.

And finally, they convinced the town’s Priest of the Unseen that his theory about the lack of piety causing the famine may have been true, in the form of the rift into the cursed world of the Fade. He brought along 3 children as well, which is a totally normal and cool thing to do for a dangerous expedition.

Prepared from their prior experiments, Coal cleared the tainted earth to create an easy path to the portal and the group set off.

The well containing the portal was situated in an abandoned monastery on the Fade side, in a sparse courtyard surrounded by modest quarters and chapel. In this region of the Fade they found no evidence of Heaven’s Grasp and made short time to the tower.

Things began to feel off when Sivv’s spell for the detection of extra planar influences drew his attention more closely to the town priest… but not enough to disrupt the plan which was well in motion.

Drop conducted the first ritual, feeling charged after climbing to the top of the tower and feeling Johnny’s energy through her scar. Guiding Daz through the ritual, Drop met up with Johnny again and everything was totally rad.

As the priest prepared for his ritual, more of the party began to notice his awkwardly long limbs, wide, flat lips, dull pale skin and generally off-putting demeanor. As Lorenzo took Deacon aside to express second thoughts, Drop found herself struck with fear as her mind pitched into the void of the ritual.

This time, as Johnny’s light arose, it was met with a deep red glow and a low rumbling and high-pitched whine drowned out all other noise…

Part 3

Pete returned from the binding ritual and told everyone that Johnny told him he’d be struck down if he ever ate non-evil sentients again. He revealed his true reptilian form and apologized, explaining that he came from a world in which eating your weaker kin is the norm, and eating a more powerful creature allows you to gain their power and is the way of their people.

He then directed Timmy to do the next ritual, because doing so was righteous and would help save their town from famine.

After Timmy’s ritual was completed, Sasha prepared to perform the final binding. Coal, seeking to disrupt the ritual, made it look like Timmy’s new scar would allow him to fire powerful blasts and become a hero and made it seem like Timmy accidentally killed Sasha. Jack began to chase after Timmy, thinking him a murderer, and Drop snatched the boy up to protect him. While they sped off on a chase across the clearing, Coal disguised himself as Sasha and convinced the final child Leopold to run off with him.

In the commotion, Lorenzo snuck off with Wit, Deacon, and the rest of the Defiant crew. The rest of the heroes began to make their escape bit by bit, but will they all make it back in time to catch the First Light before Captain Antarsena takes off to escape the danger?

Epilogue

Everyone but Coal escaped aboard the First Light, bringing along as many refugees from the village as possible. One of those refugees was a boy named Finn, who convinced First Mate Sako to let them join the crew.

Mordecai obtained the first results from his project with the University, a lightweight armour prototype crafted with the techniques learned from the construct’s shell.

Jack found that the Cool Buds Reading Room had been raided by an unidentified force and began to track them down.

Coal helped the Eternals seal the portal in Quelimane back up underground, with Pete inside, and then got a ride aboard their imposing black airship back to a border town to catch a connection… with plans to establish a presence of some kind for them in Aynuk for the first time in thousands of years.

No one is sure exactly what happened with Pete in the Fade, but whatever they did weakened the effects of the Fade enough to bring the famine to an end.

Rumors

• The ruins of Rohesia are home to a portal to the Fade, currently reburied at the request of the Eternals.
• The city of Quelimane in the periphery is suffering from a terrible famine. Some say terrorists of the Defiant are responsible.
• The party has rescued or identified all of the Unseen researchers that had been lost beneath Luxor, and recovered a large stone key that had been entombed there.
• Babis in the Periphery has become a hotspot in a war between two Lithics.
• There are reports of the failure of magic in the town of High Nest in the Periphery.

General options:

• Expedition into The Dark.
  • What rumours have you heard about your destination?
• City mission in Aynuk.
  • Intrigue/diplomacy, stealth, or intimidation?
• Trade mission to The Periphery.
  • What kind of goods are you transporting? What’s the place you’re trying to get to, and what makes you think you know where it is?
• Discovery: A new discovery session is always an option, for example to define a new region.
  • What are we most excited to learn about?
• Downtime: If people want to allow the passage of time and have their characters pursuing some downtime activities (like researching something, training, building things, etc). This combines well with Discovery or Bottle eps to fill up a shorter session.
  • What are you trying to accomplish? How long do you think it wil take?
• Bottle episode: Roleplay-focused episodes are welcome for nights when the group is in the mood for it. Shipboard hijinks, hometown visits, whatever.
  • Where are you? Who is with you? What’s everyone excited/concerned about?
• Hero smash: If the group is having a night (…or week) where they want less thinking and more heroic smashing, we can always create a combat-focused mission.
  • No question, just smash.