Act 1, Scene 3: Lake Sobainna
"The shores of this lake are a shifting sand of pastel purple and pink, as if from some kind of bioluminescence. The waters stretch into the unseeable twilit distance. The waters sparkle white on blue, as the slow waves gently touch the beach.
"The scene is dim, lit only by the gossamer glow from above. There are subtle mists rising from the lake's surface in an array of pastel colors, their vapors disappearing into the air.
"Insects quietly croak and creak here among the reeds, perhaps crickets, and little globes of light bob or zoom about here or there over the water.
But now you see an equal number of the creatures dead--slimed in black--their carcasses floating in the waters that lap the shore. So too are tiny frogs washed about floating, their bright pink bodies dotted in death with black spots. Some strange long-fish have met the same fate it seems." (Hix the Nixie will rise from the waters, wringing her hands and looking fearful. There is a dark black stain of slime on one side of her face and down her arm.) Hix the Nixie lives in the middle of Lake Sobainna, in its deepest region. The arrival of the skulks (whom she at first trusted, now kicking herself for it) proved a bitter problem, as their poisonous presence now flows into the lake and takes its shape all around. She will tell the story as she is able, hearing about the Skulks only from pixies (now sick) who came down from the hills. "But there is a more pressing problem right now. In the shallow estuary on the lake's west end, the pollution grows daily. It has touched me (she touches her face and arm), but not nearly as it's touched my family. "My friends were swimming and playing among the Glow-Bobs in the estuary, as we often do, and a terrible change came about, of a sudden. A dark material, some kind of black inky liquid, flows into the swamp in recent times. In their play, my friends wandered into it and it overwhelmed them. "'I was out in the lake swimming, and I saw it happen, heard their cries. But I dared not get near.' "'I don't know if they're still alive, but I know can't do anything, for I would be overwhelmed by such pollution.' "Please, dear mortals; you have arrived at an opportune time. I can grant you a wish--modest though it might be--as can each of my friends, if you can rescue them from the Ick.' "'For now, they are stuck beneath the waters of the estuary somewhere, overwhelmed by the Ick. I can come along as a guide, but I can't enter the estuary, polluted as it is now.' While considering the plight of this afflicted nixie, you notice a place down the beach, hidden among long, bright blue reeds, where there is a large rowboat, painted a bright pastel blue, with strong straight oars. It looks to fit perhaps five people with relative comfort.
But now you see an equal number of the creatures dead--slimed in black--their carcasses floating in the waters that lap the shore. So too are tiny frogs washed about floating, their bright pink bodies dotted in death with black spots. Some strange long-fish have met the same fate it seems." (Hix the Nixie will rise from the waters, wringing her hands and looking fearful. There is a dark black stain of slime on one side of her face and down her arm.) Hix the Nixie lives in the middle of Lake Sobainna, in its deepest region. The arrival of the skulks (whom she at first trusted, now kicking herself for it) proved a bitter problem, as their poisonous presence now flows into the lake and takes its shape all around. She will tell the story as she is able, hearing about the Skulks only from pixies (now sick) who came down from the hills. "But there is a more pressing problem right now. In the shallow estuary on the lake's west end, the pollution grows daily. It has touched me (she touches her face and arm), but not nearly as it's touched my family. "My friends were swimming and playing among the Glow-Bobs in the estuary, as we often do, and a terrible change came about, of a sudden. A dark material, some kind of black inky liquid, flows into the swamp in recent times. In their play, my friends wandered into it and it overwhelmed them. "'I was out in the lake swimming, and I saw it happen, heard their cries. But I dared not get near.' "'I don't know if they're still alive, but I know can't do anything, for I would be overwhelmed by such pollution.' "Please, dear mortals; you have arrived at an opportune time. I can grant you a wish--modest though it might be--as can each of my friends, if you can rescue them from the Ick.' "'For now, they are stuck beneath the waters of the estuary somewhere, overwhelmed by the Ick. I can come along as a guide, but I can't enter the estuary, polluted as it is now.' While considering the plight of this afflicted nixie, you notice a place down the beach, hidden among long, bright blue reeds, where there is a large rowboat, painted a bright pastel blue, with strong straight oars. It looks to fit perhaps five people with relative comfort.
- Across the Lake, black patches like oil slicks begin to mar the water
- Approaching the estuary, looking at spruce trees drooping with black slime, and amanitas slicked with dark mildew, drooping and limp.
- Upriver, a valley of blackened plants and fungus stretches winding into the distance.
- The water is murky, hard to see down into it
- Catch glimpses of movement, but not sure what it is
- A body reaching up from out of the gloom, reaching its hand toward the surface
- Some 15' below the surface, the Four Nixies are trapped by a kind of broad-leafed, dark-black seaweed
- Then catch a glimpse of some kind of black shape, like an enormous amoeba, darting swifty beneath and around the boat.
- Truly huge, it is as big as the boat, or bigger.
THE TASK
Hix has a boat of white "mushroom wood," barely fits five people, a row boat
In the estuary there are tussocks of land and grass spread about, with faint lights twinkling among them.
Through the low twilight it appears that this end of the lake is dotted with small tussocks of solid ground on which long grasses gently wave. [getting out onto these, only big enough for one] Hix swims 20' out in the lake and calls out, pointing. "My friends are trapped out there somewhere. I must away now. Save them and I will find you where we first met."
GOAL
Finding the way into the estuary (far end of the lake, at the river's mouth) then finding a way to draw off the black Ick. It is susceptable to fire; burning it off would work. What else might work? If there is an attempt to destroy the Ick, there might be some kind of repercussion for it. But there are four Nixies trapped beneath the ick in its densest area, among three or four tussocks of land and waving grass, among the Glow-bobs of the swamp. (The ick itself is a natural product of the skulks finding their way into the First World. The stuff flows slowly in water and suffocates Fey creatures; paralyzes them and very slowly suffocates. ) (And there's more slowly sliding in from the norths of the estuary.)] Hix's friends are spread out through the estuary, wrapped in a ribbon of broad black seaweed. Saving them could happen a number of ways. Generally the DC's of this situation are DC18.] Nixies' names are Fix, Snix, Rix, and Tix
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