Lintague Session 4

General Summary

Amelia Dupont, Jasper Wathustret, and Marie are still in Lintague. Amelia asks her parents for money. They give her 200 suls and some pancakes. The Thrice Full Moon is coming up soon and they share stories of Thrice Full Moons past over breakfast. Jasper went sailing on the Thrice Full Moon one year and woke up 2 days later on a deserted island with no knowledge of what happened or how he got there. Marie knows from her studies of alchemy that healing powers are more effective on the Thrice Full Moon. Amelia remembers a time when Phoebe Ford went outside of town on the Thrice Full Moon to go on an adventure. Some binders from town had to go out and look for her but were pushed back to town by Red Shamblers. Phoebe had to hide in the swamp until morning. In preparation for setting out to the Temple of Knowledge from the Book of Ruins the party consults a map. There is a town called Varna on the way to the Ruins. It is 3 days away by river and the Thrice Full Moon is 4 days away. Conceivably they could make it to Varna before the Thrice Full Moon and take shelter. They disembark on Jasper’s boat the S.S. Sun Sin toward Varna. Mayo Sauz sleeps below decks. After sailing for a little while they come upon a merchant boat coming the other way. The merchants stop and hand them A Flier from Fygmal. A researcher from Muscaria is offering a reward for a monster that can teleport. Marie knows Fygmal Tyqor from Muscaria. The rest of the day passes without event. The next day they encounter 3 Voltortoise. One looks more spectral than the others. They defeat the Voltortoise and protect the boat. The next day of travel they come upon some rapids. They make it through mostly unharmed but the sails get torn in some tree branches. After 3 days they make it to Varna. The dock master Arthur Seward greets them and helps them dock their boat. The gate guard Lucy Harker offers to show them to the inn. She tells them a man with dark hair and eyes and a gold pocket watch on a chain went missing two nights ago. She asks if they met anyone like that on the road, but they have not. She says Count Mendius Finch would probably reward them if they help find him, because the man who went missing is his brother, Feldon Finch. At the inn, Mina Quincey greets them and offers them some food. An old salt at the bar starts talking to them. He mentions he thinks Feldon Finch ran off with a woman. Then he asks if they have ever heard of Shikotsu. They haven’t. The old guy tells them that the rumor is the town has been having many earthquakes and tsunamis from the nearby lake of the same name. Mina overheard them talking about Feldon and mentions she wouldn’t mind if he didn’t come back. He owed her a hefty bar tab of 400 suls and was an obnoxious womanizer, even hitting on Mina’s wife Shelley Quincey. She asks them to maybe not bring him back. They say if they do find him the will at least get her bar tab back for her. They have a few rounds of drinks then head up to bed. That night they all have dreams. Marie sees a stone temple with 10 large statues of people, arranged in a circle. The statues tower over her, she does not recognize the figures. At the foot of each statue there is a basin. At the furthest statue which is a cloaked, androgynous person with curly hair and mischievous eyes she sees a person slumped over one of these basins. She goes to the basin and turns the person to see his face. It is her mentor, Osiris, his blood is dripping into the basin. Jasper sees the surface of a large lake. His viewpoint shifts to an underwater view as if he is sinking to the furthest depths of the lake. At the very bottom he sees a gigantic temple. At the front of the temple, stands an equally large statue of a robed, androgynous person with sharp looking hair and an intense gaze. At the base of the statue is a basin. The entrance to the temple is completely dark and all that can be seen is the reflection off of two enormous eyes slowly opening. As they open the temple starts to shake and crack. His viewpoint shifts back to the surface and on the shore of the lake he can see a figure running away clutching a golden orb. Amelia sees two figures in the darkness. One is lying on the ground and the other is crouched over them. The second figure stands up to face Amelia. No features can be discerned from this figure in the darkness until it slowly smiles revealing sharp fangs dripping with blood. Still in the hold of the boat, Mayo dreams of his mentor, Bakl-vah, sword fighting someone. He cannot see the other person’s face and has no recognition of them. The stranger disarms Bakl-vah and Bakl-vah runs away. Black tendrils coming from the stranger race along the ground after him. They catch up and entwine around him, his face is a mask of horror as they pull him into the ground. The next day they discus their dreams over breakfast and then go to the library to ask Shelley about the statues in Marie and Jasper’s dreams. They find a book of Ancient Maji structures with some depictions of statues similar to the ones from their dreams. There is a place with all 10 statues and they are found singly all throughout Rathana. The author of the book thinks the statues are depictions of gods that the Maji used to worship. They also research creatures to find one similar to Amelia’s dream. They find an account that is very similar but it is unclear if the book is meant to be fact of fiction. Jasper looks for info on Shikotsu Lake. As they leave the library, they overhear two children whispering to each other. One says they heard a monster whispering to Feldon. Feldon seemed hypnotized by the voice and the child also felt a strong compulsion to follow the voice outside the walls. The party then approach the kid, and ask about the voice. The kid is reluctant to talk to them at first but they are able to convince him to tell them what he heard. The child said the voice sounded like the pretty binder lady that was in town not too long ago. He describes the binder and says her name was Akashi or Akari or something like that. He doesn’t know much else about her. They head back to the inn to ask Mina about this binder woman. Mina says the woman was a traveling binder that she had never seen before and that she left 4 days ago. She had long black hair and sad brown eyes. She says this woman would change the subject when ever someone would ask her things about herself. They decide to venture outside of town to try and look for the binder lady or Feldon. They find some long black hair tangled in a branch and follow the trail to a patch of disturbed ground. They dig it up and find the corpse of Feldon Finch. He has a gold watch chain and 500 suls on him. The body is very pale and there are 2 puncture wounds on his neck. They take his body back to town to inform the Count. They explain to the Count where they found him. Mendius dismisses the adventurers and asks his servant to give them a reward for finding his brother. The servant escorts them to another chamber and gives them 300 suls. There is a painting in this room of a woman with long black hair and brown eyes. They inquire about it. The servant explains that the painting is of Akari Oshiro, one of the daughters of Emperor Oshiro in the days of the Maji. He says Count Mendius claims lineage from the Emperor. They go back to the library to learn more about the emperor. They find that Emperor Oshiro had 2 daughters, Akari and Kasumi Oshiro. They lived in the capital city in the center of Rathana. The emperor died before the uprising that marked The Fall of the Maji. It is unclear what happened to Akari and Kasumi during the uprising, though they were Maji themselves.