Editing 08/24/2024 -- Operation Derelict

* Date: 30 Knewidi 715AR. Starring George (commander), Zey (marshall), Charon (quartermaster), Altair (spymaster), Angel (lorekeeper), and Koilos.
* Where we pick up is with a monkey. His name is George, and he was given a very important mission by Mace Crane to go check out a monument. A derelict monument. To assemble his team, he draws a bunch of maps of the Keep, with a giant red circle where he wants everyone to meet up, and runs around to deliver the maps to everybody.
** Charon tells the Maiden a monkey has delivered her a quest, and to call for Andreas if she needs anything. The Maiden just says, “Okay, thank you,” and goes back to sitting.
* We all meet up in George’s designated meeting place. George is sitting there with a makeshift table, and a crude map of twigs and rocks. He has a paper that has “Operation Derelict” written out. He’s walking around on the table with his hands behind his back, trying to look very important and high-up. Charon asks the commander what’s up, and George hands Charon the operation paper and begins talking and signing in his monkey ways. We all make mental checks to see if we understand.
* The people who get 1 success (Angel and Ki) believe they understand. They do not understand. Ki and Angel think they’re going into a cave to harvest organs from a creature for medicinal purposes. Only Charon actually understands George to a degree and picks up what he’s trying to convey. We decide to prepare for the missions we think we’re going on and see who’s right when we get there.
** Altair and Zey just straightup have no clue what’s going on.
* George rolls a 1d6 (4) and rolls a 1d20 for a random event (7).

* We choose for Mark to go missing. The upgrade we lose is Exploratory Ventures.
* Zey tries to study the disease through its stages of healing (DII + BII?), and gets full successes… but it does absolutely nothing extra, since he already kinda knew recovery worked by isolating the virus and ripping it apart. To improve what he knows, he’d either have to get himself a nexus to learn more about connections in the virus, or study different ways that may be able to more effectively tear it apart.
* Ki goes to Zey to have blood drawn, and makes a spirit save (4 successes). A lot of blood is taken, and it’s a little invasive, but she doesn’t lose SP or gain levels of tired. Altair spends -2 recovery to get health blocks back. Charon’s associate is free, so they go somewhere for privacy, and she unlocks the first steps of her school. When she comes back, Angel asks it for help sneaking into the prison to speak to Radovan after the mission, and Charon agrees to help in exchange for more information, which they promise to provide later. Angel also spends -1 scrap for torches, still thinking we’re going caving.
* The spymaster takes Exploratory Ventures again, and switches propaganda to emeralds. We get +2 emerald, +1 supply. The quartermaster starts the build process for Andreas’s therapy zone. We spend -2 intel, and ask how dangerous the mission is. We are told a very solid low 2 to a high 1. A challenge we might face is a way of unlocking the secrets within the monument and satisfying the conditions for entry. A useful item would be something that affects light.
* The marshall roll is not good. It is very quickly clear we are not alone in these woods, and spend the better part of our journey avoiding Ruvor. After hours of running, we all lose -50SP, gain Tired I, and have the choice between losing -2 supply or gaining +1 detection. We choose to lose -2 supply… and it turns into -4 because of the rainbow omen.
* Around 3 o’clock, we see a run-down stone structure in the distance, tucked into a small valley. Pillars are scattered about this place, and there’s some sort of raised dais in the middle, with a stairway going up it. There’s also a domed stone structure. We don’t know if we’ve completely lost the Ruvor.
* Going up the stairs, we see a circular raised altar carved out of stone. There’s a series of gemstones of all different types embedded in it. There’s both a sun and moon symbol on the structure, with the moon partially covering the sun. The pillars around us are flat, very finely-hewn stone pillars constructed in a triangular fashion. On one of the sides is a word written in Elvish, which Zey translates as “Reveals”. All of the pillars have words on them, and from bottom to top, they read: “essential” “reveals” “light” “sight” “blocked”.
* The gemstones don’t seem to be magic, but are very precisely cut. Putting your hand over a torch isn’t the precision needed. George takes out the binoculars to see if he can concentrate the sunlight through them, and is able to partially focus the light, but realizes this isn’t the only part of the equation. On top of each pillar is a diamond of some sort, with faintly growing runes. Charon is lifted up to look at the runes, and notices they seem to be detecting the surrounding level of ambient light. She uses an illusion to alter the light, and finds it responds positively to the level of ambient light during an eclipse. Charon uses an illusion to cover 3 of the pillars, and Angel and George make mental checks to cover the diamonds of other pillars to alter the light they get. With the highest level of successes on their mental check, Angel is able to block it, and George succeeds by copying them.
* Ki begins to see a change in the dais, the perfect amount of light beginning to hit the different gemstones. It starts to separate, and there appears to now be a spinning wheel of Elvish lettering that opens up, activated due to the faking of the light level. She calls Zey over, and he reads the words “9 attempts”. There are 5 spinning tumblers we can use to input a 5-letter word.
* We lock in the word “Third” after a few wrong guesses. There’s a rumbling as the raised altar descends and slowly turns sideways, revealing a staircase descending deeper into the monument. Down the path is a casket, and three different hallways jutting off in all directions. The casket is made of a very fine type of wood, with darker elements.
* Charon can feel energy in this place – it’s almost as if she’s moving easier, quicker. Just overall more lively. She asks Angel if they feel it, and they say they do. We find out through some trial and error that healing doesn’t work inside this monument.
* Zey tries to open the lower left door, and sees a large chamber filled with all these sorts of urns, statues, ceremonial medals and coins, jewels and treasures… it’s a hall of relics. There’s more Elvish writing on the coins and medals, though parts of the writing seem to be missing a letter or spelled weird, and there’s no Z.
** One of the coins says “elven blood, elven strength”.
* In the righthand room, there’s a floor-to-ceiling map of the Omenweald. This valley is in the middle of some kind of triangular geographic formation. The very center of the dimension is 19 miles northwest of Widowstone, and has a tower of some sort.
* Zey pushes the back door open, power radiates out. Floating in the middle is a jet-black spear floating amongst swirling aether, seeming finely carved out of perhaps obsidian, gold, silver, platinum, titanium, dozens of other metals… there seems to be a convergence of all the different veins of metals, to this one perfect point. Zey looks at the base of the structure, and sees the name Tre’Dauthin.
* Zey looks for traps, but can’t detect any. He tries to get a sense of the power, and with 3 successes, gets that it’s very powerful, even dormant like it is now. Looking at the point, he’d know it’s a Sharp V spear, among other tags.
* Charon sends a thank you to whoever’s in here, telling them we’re trying to save the world. It gets 4 successes [spirit – BIII] and as she gives the prayer, Charon feels the energy of the room begin to grow. The place shakes, and as we look around, it doesn’t seem… angry, but she picks up on pain and hurt. There’s a connection to her. As she taps her foot on the floor, just trying to think, it looks down at its body… and it’s very, very solid.
* Charon asks if there’s something they need still. There’s a sense of hurt, then anger, then a shock of intent – she can decipher it as revenge. 
* As we get ready to leave, Angel tries to dust off the top of the casket. Red lettering appears along the casket as they touch it, and Zey reads it.
** '''Here lies Beatrix, Third Dorcha Arex'''
* Zey goes back to the spear and takes it, feeling power quake in this place.
* Charon still has some flowers from the meadow, and leaves one on the casket. As we leave, the doorway slowly starts to close up. She gives it a bow, turning ghosty as she goes. 
* We arrive within the walls later at night. Due to us copying down the map, we get +8 intel (+4 doubled), +10 emerald (+5 doubled), and +20 relics (+10 doubled).
* Zey knows Beatrix was a Dorcha, and an elf. She came about a century or two after the first Dorcha. He recalls her being very powerful, one of the “problem” Dorchas.
* All the children of Sin take a level-up.