03/24/2024 -- Operation Saving Private Seth

Date: 18 Chy-sa 715AR. Starring Thomas (commander), Andreas (marshal), Storm (quartermaster), Abella (spymaster), and Bloom (lorekeeper).
We pick up with Andreas, who goes to the Maiden for his ritual. The guards are all a little on edge. The Maiden is doing work at her desk, and Andreas is asked to make a physical check [1 success], but that’s all he picks up on. She jumps a bit when he speaks, but agrees to do the ritual. Andreas offers to help with prep, but the Maiden just tells him to take a seat, and he does. She says he’ll try to tap into his blood’s memories, and asks how old he is. He says 35. She says that’s a long way, but the memory of blood goes back to the start of things, so they might be able to get a glimpse at who his parents were, or what the situation was like.
She begins to chant, and magic washes over Andreas. He allows it to take hold, and his vision changes. We find the city of Tpres almost 35 years ago, on an assuming street corner, in a middle-class home. A mother is rocking her child back and forth, the child almost a year old. Andreas watches in a form like a ghost.
A middle-aged man with a bushy beard, jet-black hair, and tanned skin approaches. He wears a toolbelt. The child’s father picks him up, rocking him. The mother says he’s running and climbing far better than the other kids, and asks if it could be a problem, and if he’s not normal. The father says he walks normal, laughs normal, etc… he checked the kid himself every day for six months. The woman asks if he could have become not normal since then [calling the man Pierre], and he says he’d have felt it. He calls her Yvonne.
As they talk more, she calls him Zell – his eyes flicker, and he says it’s dangerous to use that name, that you never know who’s listening. But he takes baby!Andreas from the woman’s arms, and says Andreas will live a normal human life, not brought up as a noble in Clover, or suffering in war… and then there’s an explosion! Andreas sees the Maiden unconscious on the floor, and hears more explosions going off. The camera shifts to Thomas and Bloom.
Thomas is helping people around camp, and Bloom is nearby playing solitaire. There’s a rush of smoke and a flash of light, and we see a distant mushroom cloud. Thomas tries to keep people from panicking, and soon after, Mace Crane approaches him, asking if he heard the explosion. Crane says Seth is missing, and took an emerald. He thinks the explosion is related, and asks Thomas to gather a team and head out. He has a person he wants to send with us – Storm is preparing the ship, and the new person will join us there.
Thomas asks Bloom to join, and Bloom agrees. He then goes to the Maiden’s tent, and finds Andreas there. The Maiden is barely awake, but insisting she’s fine, and that the air was a little spicy. Thomas asks Andreas what that means, and he says he doesn’t know. He asks the Maiden if she saw the vision too, and she says she saw bits and pieces of it. Andreas tells all the servants to leave, and grabs Thomas by the shoulders, telling him he’s gonna tell him something, and he can’t tell anyone else.
- “I asked the Maiden to help me find out where my powers come from, my forcefields, my magic… I saw a vision, saw my father and my mother. My mother was human, my father… Zell.” ( – Andreas)
Thomas asks if Andreas is alright, and Andreas says he doesn’t know.
- “It's gonna be alright, Andreas. Who your father is doesn’t change who you are. I don’t begin to know what you’re going through, but we’ll get you through it. You have others to rely on.” ( – Thomas)
Andreas asks if Thomas is here for something. Thomas says he was gonna ask for healing, but the Maiden seems a little out of it (she insists she’s so fine, and just did blood magic. Thomas says he’s not getting into that). He asks if Andreas heard the explosion, and relays what Mace Crane told him. He sends Andreas to meet Storm at the boat, before helping the Maiden into a bed. She heals Thomas, and later Bloom, before going back to her desk to work.
We meet at the boat, and see the (blindfolded) tracker Mace Crane is sending with us.
- Abella [Jamie] – A female satyr running up to us, slightly out of breath. She has loose, dark robes, long flowing red hair, and large horns decorated with jewelry. Parts of her hair and ears are also decorated, and she wears a few necklaces. One is more tarnished, like it’s touched more often – that one bears the symbol of a hummingbird. She wears a dark blindfold that’s a bit dirty and worn, but she moves confidently toward us, giving us the sense she can still navigate.
Abella asks if we’re the ones investigating the explosion. We say we are, and she introduces herself. We pile into the boat, and the camera pans to Seth.
Seth is in a broken landscape, clinging to a gnarled tree. He’s floating in water, and missing his left leg, and a few teeth fall out of his mouth. He’s unable to move one of his arms. He tries to climb higher, and with 2 successes he’s able to slowly get up. Higher in the tree, he can see a shape moving below the water, something much bigger than the tree. The camera cuts back to camp.
The spymaster is given the opportunity to upgrade the spy network – they take the rangers upgrade, and the training upgrade (upgrading Bortis to level 2). Bortis is reassigned to recovery. Our spies recover +2 emeralds, +2 recovery.
The commander spends 1 intel to ask what a useful item is. We’re told a stretcher of some kind, but we don’t have the scrap material for it. The spymaster asks for two approaches, and is told to ask something else, so they instead ask about the danger level. We’re told a 7. The quartermaster decides to bring a supply wagon.
The marshal makes their roll [5, 4, 2], and we find ourselves in a risky position. Storm is driving the ship.
Eventually, we see a cloud of mist indicating we’re probably near Seth. We head into it, and find ourselves in a valley-esque region – not full mountains, but very large hills with some sheer cliffs. Bloom sees an aboleth cut in two floating in the water (though we only see one half of it), and points this out to Thomas.
The depth of the water varies between 50-100 ft down. Abella detects regular terrain below, but no creatures. We decide to be very careful.
The rain picks up in intensity, the valley continuing to flood, and we smell fire and chemicals in the air as we get close to the site of the explosion. Bloom recognizes traces of thermite in the air, but it’s more pungent than ours – it’s either significantly more thermite, or a stronger version of it.
Bloom makes a physical check [2 successes] to look for Seth, and doesn’t pick up on anything. Thomas makes a physical check [Detriment I, 3 successes] to scan the water for him, and sees an impact zone below us where the ground appeared to have been aboveground not long ago. He sees that the bottom seems to have a rippling effect, but doesn’t see a creature.
Andreas says he could ask his Torvian, but doesn’t know if it’ll answer. Thomas says he didn’t know Torvians could speak, and inspects his own Torvian.
At this point, there’s a large splash, the water becoming disturbed for a moment. We see material raining down, and the glint of metal from two large chests up on one side of the valley. We see a heavily wounded Seth, throwing rocks and branches down, and waving his hand. He tries to convey through gestures that the creature is in the water, but fails the check, and just succeeds in looking panicked.
Bloom looks closer at the cliff face, and sees that Seth’s cave is about 150 ft up. Around the opening are deep groove marks, like giant fangs – with a physical check [1 success], Bloom determines that it looks like whatever made the marks didn’t come up, but went down.
Seth shouts down to us that it’s about to attack, and his voice echoes out. Thomas, who was watching the bottom of the water, sees an eye open, 5-6 times the size of the ship. It moves upward, its serpentine form stretching to the horizon, its eyes looking down at us. Storm recognizes it as a beast Magion fought before – the beast of Bedlam, the world serpent.
The serpent lunges down at the ship, and we all book it off. Bloom and Andreas are launched high in the air, landing on the cliffside fairly close to Seth, while Abella, Storm, and Thomas end up in the water. Bloom is stable, and Andreas is also hanging on, though the bit he’s standing on is unstable. He creates a forcefield under his feet, and holds his hand out to Bloom. Bloom takes it, and they start climbing towards Seth.
The group in the water tries to stealthily swim toward the cliff, with Thomas and Storm guiding Abella. They get to make phys/mental checks (DC 2) to avoid being spotted. Thomas is successful, but Abella and Storm fail, and catch the serpent’s attention. It rears back, growing a new set of teeth.
Abella tries to use Animal Speaker to talk it down, telling it we can help each other. It speaks very fast in reply, and mostly absolute gibberish. Storm tries to swim further from Abella to draw its attention away, and it targets him – he gets a phys save to dodge its first strike, and gets 2 successes, only losing an armor block.
Andreas and Bloom make it into Seth’s cave. Seth wants us to carry the chests out, and gives the one he’s already opened to Andreas, saying it has the Blossomed’s future plans. He asks Bloom to try to open the other chest, but we decide to focus on saving our friends. Andreas leans out of the cave and yells, “hey! Hey, snake! Fuck you!” It doesn’t do much.
Thomas reaches the base of the cliff, throws a rock at the snake, aiming at the eye (though he’s fine with anywhere on the head) to draw it from Storm. He gets 7 successes at Benefit II on his physical check, and the rock goes into its mouth, where it begins to wheeze and choke. Thomas starts climbing, and Storm tries to make it to the cliff base, but gets 0 successes on his physical check. Abella successfully reaches the cliff base and starts climbing.
The creature focuses in again on Storm, and swallows him. Abella makes it up to the cave, and the snake lunges at us – we see Storm alive but unconscious in its jaws. Andreas makes a physical check (4 successes) to create a forcefield beneath Storm, and meets the DC. He opens his hand, unleashing the forcefield and sliding it underneath Storm. As the snake pulls back, Storm’s body is left on the forcefield. The snake doubles back to attack him, but Andreas and Thomas move to grab him, and get 8 successes, the exact DC needed. They pull him into safety.
The snake slams into the cave over and over, before eventually sinking below the water to try to wait us out. Andreas uses Triage to stabilize Storm, and Storm wakes up.
Chest 1 (already opened) has diagrams and charts showing where to deliver infused thermite in a steel cart that Seth attacked. All of the Blossomed had plans for it:
- Amis was going to use the thermite to blow up the high road (the road we’d soon be taking), and trap us on it. His operations will begin within the next 5 days, but his operation probably won’t be complete in sooner than 20 days.
- Firmin has taken hold of a fort called The Maw, and is using it for a base of operations against Widowstone Keep. Kynaston is already besieging Widowstone Keep.
- Dionysia is mobile, but has a dropoff point on the high road. Her forces are still searching for Althara the Impure.
It takes us a while, but we get chest 2 open. It has 15 relics collected by the Impure, and 3 unknown runes that might be able to be used to upgrade weapons in different ways.
- Before missions, instead of getting one of the bonuses from Lucky Eight’s/Rat Races/etc, you can try to uncover one of the runes. You can make a check, and if you successfully complete the rune, you gain a new effect that can be applied to weapons/armor. The person who uncovered the rune gets a discount on the cost of adding the effects.
Also in chest 2 is an idol that seems to be known as an icon of corruption. It seems to be made of rusted iron, and has these almost fractal patterns. It’s radiating corruption, and we get the sense that anyone who has corruption will have their corruption made worse if they touch it.
We debate on how to leave – Seth consults his spirit, and relays to us that it told him to become the hunter, and not the hunted. He encourages us to try to blind it so that we can escape. He tells us that the spirit sent him on the mission, and that the explosion happened when he threw some thermite at a pack of Crows pursuing him, and it set off a chain reaction.
Bloom suggests that he could try to use his power to blind the creature, but also mentions that the last time he used the power, he was told he did end up ripping Andreas’s stomach out (to which Andreas corrects him and says that he made his stomach explode). He doesn’t remember much about what happened, but Rav growing taller happened after he asked the Eon Lattice to stop Rav from moving, and… well, the roots Rav grew apparently stopped him from moving.
While we’re debating on if we should use Bloom's power, Andreas quietly says, “Someone help us.” We hear a voice say, “Well, if you insist.”
…And we turn to see Bob has teleported in. No one is happy to see him. He says we could try our luck on our own, but he just thought he heard a cry for help from Andreas. He offers to make a deal, since one has just been completed.
Andreas asks what the deal would be, and Bob says that for him, that’s a tough one. He thinks, and decides on a two-parter.
- “I get you to agree to do something, to take a life. You say yes or no. If it’s yes, that you are willing to take a life, I teleport you and your friends back to camp. Back at your camp, I simply give you the name. I give you… what? Is 100 days enough time? Or would you like til the end of the year?”
He confirms he won’t tell Andreas ahead of time who it is, but says they’re part of the Impure. He also says that if Andreas fails to complete the deal, he’d like Thomas’s hand (and he points at Thomas’s Torvian).
Andreas asks to have until the end of the year (120-130 days). Bob agrees, and Andreas quietly says, “Father, I hope this works out,” before accepting Bob’s deal. We’re teleported back to the camp, and Bob gives him the name of the person he wants him to kill: Yvonne, the Roving Hex. He asks if Andreas knows of her. Andreas says he’s heard of her, and that she’s… definitely one of the Impure.
Bob reiterates that Andreas has to find and kill her, and the deal will be complete. And if he fails, then by the end of the year, Bob gets a Torvian. But it won’t come to that. Bob says it’s been good doing business with him, and then disappears.
The session ends here. Everyone gets a level-up.