Editing 07/14/2024 -- Operation Delve

* Date: 13 Knewidi 715AR. Starring Seth (commander), Thomas (marshall), Fidelis (quartermaster), Elise (spymaster), and Angel (lorekeeper).
* We begin with the group going to meet with Mace Crane in the command building. He tells us that it’s time we begin to go into the Sanctum. He warns us to not spend too much in the dungeon, as they don’t know if it will have adverse effects on us. Given the overall structure of the keep, the dungeon should have multiple layers. He tells us to come back to the surface and report when we complete one. We do this by the book, slow and careful.
* Most of the group goes to the Rat Races. Angel gives up their bonus to go to the creek to pick flowers, and brings them to Margaux. Margaux says she hopes something’s not wrong, and Angel says that for once, nothing is. They tell her they got the flowers for her, so she could spruce up her space if she’d like, and as thanks for the flowers she gave them before. She thanks them, and says she usually takes care of the dead, so it’ll be nice to take care of the living. She also asks what the next plan for the Hook is, and Angel says they think they’ll be looking for Philip, but that they and Charon still have to talk to Corania about looking for Enola. Margaux says that the wards she’ll have to provide will just be a bit different, depending on who we’re getting.
* Margaux also offers to come down into the dungeon with us in the future, if we need. Angel says they’ll be happy to have her once she’s fully healed. She also suggests they bring silver and salt, in case of undead. Angel relays this to the quartermaster after they leave.
* The spymaster spends -2 morale and -2 supply to get field assessment and exploratory ventures. We gain +2 supply and +3 recovery. The recovery is immediately spent on Angel, Fidelis, and Thomas. 
* The quartermaster begins a new project to waterproof the Keep (specifically tents and common areas like the tavern). He also brings salt (-1 scrap) on the mission, and equips Thomas with 1 silver ingot.
* The commander burns 1 intel to ask what a useful item is, and is told silver. The spymaster asks how the leadership feels about this mission.
** Mace Crane is cautious yet optimistic, and thinks the Brigade should be pushing outwards in all directions to gain territory.
** Magion is an enigma. They get nothing from him, and he actively shoos away all members of the intel network.
** Corania believes we should be strengthening the aboveground network first. She is more interested in getting people back with the Hook, and making Widowstone Keep more self-sufficient.
** Lavatera desires to go forward and explore. Being the storm witch, she has no desire to go underground.
* The marshall does not have to make a delve roll. He gets 2 hero points.
* The party makes their way to the tree and enters the Sanctum. There were guards outside of it, but not in here. Seth transforms, and rubs a bit of salt into his fur. As we proceed, we see a small alcove that was formerly Zell’s living space. There’s a bundle of clothes in the corner, and a makeshift desk made of twigs and stones. There are books of all different subjects and types. Histories and battles, but also books on things like sewing. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of letters on the desk, written to two people – Yvonne (sometimes called sweetheart), and Andreas.
** Elise suggests that Andreas would want to see the letters, and Thomas agrees to deliver some of the letters – he plans to pick them up on his way back, and preemptively adds thousands of letters to Andreas to his inventory.
* Seth finds a few bags, containing pocket dimensions with food, water, and other things. We gain +1 supply, and some womens’ jewelry, including a necklace with an emerald large enough to be of use (+1 emerald).
* We come to the top of a lift that descends down. Seth gets on first, and after finding that the weight of the group should probably be fine, everyone else joins him. We descend, eventually hitting bottom. Toward the center of the room we enter is a chest with a glittering gold inlay. The rest of the chamber depicts a more fey individual wielding some sort of rapier. The images depict the person leaving a destroyed city, and moving through dense glades and forest. People spread from the group, constructing their own cities. In the last mosaic on the far wall, the figure is on a throne, blade in one hand and a fern tree branch in the other. Their eyes look down at everything.
* Seth smells the air (phys – 5 successes). To the south, he smells more natural things, leaves and dirt and sap. Lingering in the air is the scent of smoke. To the east, he smells old books and something metallic. He doesn’t smell any creatures.
* Elise checks the chest for traps (mental – 0 successes), and doesn’t find any. There is writing on the chest, in Elvish and Goblin. Elise translates the Elvish.
** “I am companion to all good or ill beneath the evening star, yet right hand to guardians near and far, I wear a hood but no other cloth, guide the lost yet have no legs, feed me well and I shall be steady. What is my name?”
* Elise says the word “lantern”, but nothing happens. Fidelis calls it out in Elvish, and there’s a clicking sound. The chest slowly opens. On a pad of velvet at the bottom is a gilded lantern. It is surprisingly light when Elise picks it up, and has no wick or other fuel source inside it, though it does have an empty oil catch.
* No one in the party speaks Goblin. Seth asks his Spirit if it does, and it says it doesn’t – its only language is that of the forest and the ring.
** “I know the language of blood and claw.” 
** “Thank you.”
** “I am illiterate.”
* Angel tries to see if the eyes in the last mosaic are looking at anything in particular, and after a successful check, they see a single discolored tile on the floor with a more metallic sheen – silver. It has Elvish text on it, which Elise again translates. It also has a tree branch at the bottom.
** “Metal does not burn unless coaxed, but here in a place of change, all natures can be altered.”
* Elise suggests the silver might be meant to fuel the lantern. The party is unsure at the moment how to convert it.
* Angel wonders if the walls might have invisible writing on them that require a blacklight, and Fidelis uses a light rune to make one. Hidden in the blacklight is a moving star/pulsating image carried by the leading fey, existing in each of the images. Following it are spectral animals and creatures – ghosts of moths, deer, dragons, and wolves. Angel and Fidelis get 2 hero points. 4 or 5 otherwise invisible moths begin to congregate around Fidelis. He tries to tell if they’re dangerous, but with 1 success, just gets that they look very pretty. Elise holds out the lantern to them, but they don’t seem to care about it.
* The party goes down the eastern passage, and comes to a door made of petrified wood. Behind it is some sort of gallery, exhibiting a lot of different things – types of ore, books, pieces of clothing (suited for different races/body types, and having styles across many different cultures. No armor, just fashionable designs), small knicknacks and items, forks and bedsheets, linens and boots, and other mundane things thrown together.
* On the far end of the room is a massive balancing scale. On one side of the scale is a glowing blue light. The light seems to have some weight – the scale is depressed a bit. The opposite side is empty.
* The bookshelf has 8 shelves. It mostly has battle treatises on different stances and schools. Each shelf has the same volume of books in a different language – Dwarvish, Elvish, Goblin, Genasi, all the way down. There is no Common. There are meditations on swordplay, advanced meditations on swordplay, a treatise on the use of axes in combat, meditations on the flame school, meditations on the sea school… There is also writing in the margins, the same across the books. Whoever has written in this has added their own notes, crossed things out, and made adjustments, like they have their own thoughts on each of the schools.
** Thomas inspects the land school book, comparing them to Helmuth’s teachings. The notes are a little different, but Helmuth’s teachings align a lot with it, though where he knows it to be empty, the book has extra mountains.
* The lantern is placed on the scale. There’s a distant grinding sound, and we find that a secret passage has opened in the south. A lever in the down position is revealed.
* There’s a stronger sense of Primordial magic from the other side of the southern door. Seth opens it. In the center of the room is a large empty wooden brazier that gives off a passive hum of Primordial magic. Roots from the Primordial Tree come down from the ceiling and break through the floor. One of the roots has a large tap on it. Seth can smell the sweet sap.
* In the room is a floor-to-ceiling door, also made of petrified wood. There’s a relief of a figure, with its eyes looking out at us. There are many spectral moths around the door. Elise goes and flips the lever, and a catch comes across the door, preventing it from shutting again. She backtracks and picks up the lantern before returning to the party. She drops the silver in the brazier… and nothing happens.
* Elise turns the tap on, and catches some of the cyan blue sap in her palm – it makes her entire body tingle from the energy. Fidelis lights the sap and it ignites. The silver also begins to bubble, becoming putty-like and malleable with a pale green glow. The fire is cold, and not producing heat, so the brazier isn’t being damaged. Elise puts some of the putty into the oil catch.
* We backtrack to a weird wall we saw earlier, and find that as the light of the lantern touches it, the wall fades away. Inside is a room filled with treasure, along with large stones likely containing a great deal of ore. On the leftmost wall are well-preserved pieces of food, and on top of the treasure pile is a platinum shield with a shimmering glow. It has a magical aura.
** The Gloryseeker’s Shield has a -2 shield rating and gives armor block, but gains +1 shield rating for each hero point its wielder possesses. If an innocent is murdered or the bearer of the shield acts dishonorably toward those below their station, the bearer loses 3 hero points. The shield is put into the party inventory.
* Seth loots the area for +3 relics, +10 emeralds, and +3 supplies.
* We go back to the locked door, and notice that the moths don’t like the lantern – they shy away from it, and when caught in its glow, they disappear. There’s a clicking sound as the lantern shines on the door, and the figure’s eyes light up. The way ahead is filled with bushes and shrubs, and there’s a small pond in the center. We also see a lift-like mechanism.
* The group moves toward the center of the room, with Elise in the lead. Above them is a noise. Among a swirling vortex of moths in the rafters is Mama (the Silverlight Moth) – a giant beast about 50 ft long spreads their wings. We roll for order.
* Initiative: Silverlight moth → Fidelis → Elise → Seth → Thomas → Angel
* The moth descends, opening with 4 wing slice attacks. Along the edge of her wing is silver, a fine razor-thin line that she cuts with. Elise loses all 3 health blocks in the series of attacks. She’s sent flying, and lands hard on the ground, moving no more.
* Fidelis tries to set the moth on fire, dealing 32 dmg (sp). Seth holds his action to jump and smack the fuck out of it when it descends to attack. Thomas uses his bg action to pick up the lantern from Elise, and holds his action for if it comes after him.
* Angel, who began in the other room, uses their action to sprint inside. They attack offhand with their crossbow, dealing 9 dmg (sp). The moth uses its gale ability to force everyone to make phys saves, knocking Fidelis backward into Seth, before attacking Thomas. Seth and Thomas’s delayed actions trigger, and they take a few health blocks from it together. Thomas loses a lot of sp, but remains upright, and the moth flies back up 30 ft.
* Seth, Thomas, and Angel delay their attacks for when the moth swoops down within reach, but it bypasses Thomas and Angel when it goes for Seth. Angel hexes it on their turn. Seth climbs onto it to attack, dealing 45 dmg (sp). On his turn, Thomas passes Seth the lantern. Thomas and Fidelis are eventually able to attack and take out 3 more health blocks altogether.
* The moth targets Seth, nearly killing him. On what would be the killing blow, Angel’s hex takes out its last health block, wrapping around it and strangling it.
* After some debate on who to take Elise to, Thomas and Seth book it to Lavatera, barely making it (phys B1 – 5 successes). They basically break down her door, and she whirls, her eyes crackling with lightning, before recognizing them and asking what happened. They ask her to save Elise, and she says the spirit is faint, but she can, though we might draw attention to ourselves. She asks if we have emeralds, and Thomas dumps out the emeralds Elise got.
* Lavatera says there are no guarantees, but she’ll try (she needs to roll above a 2). Seth is asked to choose how many emeralds to spend – he spends 5, fully covering the detection penalty (which is revealed after to be a minimum of 4). Lavatera rolls a 6, so Elise gets a 2-level penalty, but nothing worse. Lavatera fills Elise with lightning and magic, and there’s a connection as lightning meets lightning. Elise takes a deep breath in and begins to cough, accidentally breathing out some lightning.
** “Hmm, I see. Welcome back.” – Lavatera
* Lavatera tells Elise to take her time, and drapes a blanket over her. Elise looks to Thomas and Seth, and asks if we were noticed. Seth says we weren’t. Thomas slumps down, his hand over his face. Lavatera slumps into a nearby chair, looking exhausted. Seth hugs her, and she smiles and gives him a kiss on the cheek. She tells him to be more careful – he seems like he has some battle wounds himself.
* Seth says he’s on the brink of death right now, and Lavatera confirms that it was a moth that almost killed him – he says yes, it was very, very strong, and Thomas adds that it was a bigass moth. Lavatera laughs, and says that’s a story she’ll have to hear. Her eyes flutter closed, and she falls unconscious, ending the session. We have cleared the first level of the Sanctum.
* Seth spends 8 relics to increase his physical score by 2.
* '''Net gains/losses: +6 emerald, +4 supply, +1 magic shield, -1 intel, -1 scrap, -5 relic.'''