Loose threads:
- Origins, relations, and motives of "The Sun in Shadow" (may involve religious quarrels)
- Unknown and his people (may involve religious quarrels)
- What are Derek and his gang of silly billies doing (will definitely involve all manner of quarreling)
Participants:
- Arturo
- Banastre Rowe
- Feathers of Sunlight
- Laby Excandria
- Scarlet
Locations: Northern Forest of Watcher's Island, Halfling Church
Short summary:
Around the north end of Watcher's Island is an old church where ritual sacrifice of animals was practiced. Little else is known about this church, but with fiends continuing to make moves across the Unexplored Continent, perhaps it can bear some information. Answer: It did, and it's both concerning and weird and relates to religious stigmas and a certain - what does this paper say? Cowboy demon? And yet that's the least concerning thing here.
Full Report
First, the reason for this expedition per the guild's listing: "Around the north end of Watcher's Island is an old church where ritual sacrifice of animals was practiced. Little else is known about this church, but with fiends continuing to make moves across the Unexplored Continent, perhaps it can bear some information."
We traveled via the most direct land route - we would go through the Silent Forest (which remained silent), through the desert, and into the northern forest.
Not too long after passing Watcher's Tribe Village we encountered a kobold that seemed to be training for combat. I, unfortunate, do not understand Draconic - the only word she spoke that I understood was "cookies" (meaning hardtack here). Those companions of mine who did understand exchanged words and gave her hardtack. Apparently there is a "giving bug" somewhere that gave her cookies at some point - probably someone else employed by the guild. Not a very productive meeting but it was interesting nevertheless.
Sometime later, we encountered some disturbance in the water beneath a bridge. The source of it was a water aspected relic in the form of a beautiful pearl which was retrieved and is currently in the care of Scarlet, though I do not know what she intends for it.
Our rest in the Silent Forest was just that - Silent. Peaceful silence.
We crossed into the desert. At night, we were attacked by a flock of necromunculi. I'm not sure if this is a common occurrence in the desert here - I would be concerned, honestly. We dispatched them with relative ease though. We left the desert without another encounter, though I believe we caught a glimpse of Rydess. I don't know if she took notice of us, but if she did then she let us be.
Traveling into the forest we were taken aback as a deer ran straight into a tree. We couldn't figure out what was wrong with it until Scarlet got close enough to take a blood sample. The sample itself is superfluous because she discovered the problem seemed to be its vision. We got our answer not too long later when we discovered an odd pair of monstrosities: a Gibbering Mouther and a Zuipnyrn (or Moon Mole) - the latter was the source of the flash, and the former the victim of my displeasure. I don't particularly remember the entire event - only that I had been flashed and blinded at one point and spent a whole minute hacking and stabbing at that pile of flesh that kept biting me. It was awful. I hate these things. I hate things like them. I hate how it seemed to be yammering in Elven a bit.
Recovering from any wounds, we finally found the path to the church. It's in an odd place. Churches, temples, those sorts of things usually have a community nearby or surrounding them, but this place exists isolated in the woods. We finally agreed to simply enter and found our first horrible little fiend: a hellhound pup. He was not truly horrible. His parent as well was merely big but seemed tamed by the sole occupant of the church when he arrived, a halfling by the name of Schnapps. He quickly proved to be quite hospitable and warm without a drop of sinister machinations to be found while we asked questions. After asking about the presence of fiends in the area (his hellhounds excluded) he revealed he was expecting a few to show up. Indeed, some demons appeared, and through not too much prying we discovered they were employees of Derek, who were looking to make contact with someone - a deity - called the Shadowed Lady, or the-Sun-in-Shadow. Schnapps was apparently able to facilitate this, but we needed an offering. Nothing gruesome - it was more embarrassing than anything: a cooking competition. We competed to create dishes to appeal to this Shadowed Lady and I think we won. I say "think" because I do not know what happened to the demons after this point: they seemed to simply leave, and we did after all finally make contact with this infamous Sun-in-Shadow.
I don't like the idea of speaking with deities and demigods typically. It's a sore subject. With that said, she seemed amicable if not slightly irresponsible. She would like followers but it seems she doesn't care about their motives for seeking her or her power. Take this Derek for example. She laid out exactly what he wanted from her: to get new employees for his (demonic) mercenary company, and he figures she will do so if he manages to get her followers. By her own words: he's not wrong. However, she doesn't seem to care for what he does after the fact (hence why she reveals this information to us) - she wants people to worship her and doesn't care where they come from or what they want. In her words again: the worshipers he's gotten her are the first new ones she has had in over a millennia.
As for what sort of deity she is, she seems to be the counter to what we have learned to be her brother: the-Sun-in-Splendor. She also made reference to "Scaly Show-Offs" that I neglected to get clarified, perhaps someone else knows. Regardless, she seems to want to spread her influence and is unable and unwilling to do so through Schnapps due to him being, frankly, just a nice guy who doesn't deserve to get killed over this - she was rather specific during the course of this to mention pyres. I don't know much about how the local religions handle this stuff [an extensive portion of this sentence has been blotted out severely]. There seems to be no lost love and probably even animosity between them - the source of which we never quite gathered. During this, she had a particular request that I do not see the merit of mentioning beyond that Laby Excandria politely declined, however the Shadowed Lady was passionate enough to be agitated and attempt to show us what "she" was like. I am honestly still confused over who "she" is - it's not her brother obviously, but I'm stumped. Regardless, she unveiled a scene before us.
Disturbing is how I'd describe it. Hedonistic? A temple devoted to some goddess of fertility, an ongoing feast, excess. I had a feeling we were about to see something awful, but I also got a sense put right into my head of what we were seeing, or what the purpose of the feast was, at least symbolically because the literal implications of "consuming one of each thing that lives and breathes" to "return to the allmother" is beyond my scope or desire to get involved with since before I crossed the portal. The vision started coming to an end as a third party seemed to intervene. I don't feel the revelations of this encounter are reliable enough to report - more research is needed, but if anyone needs to ask I'll be willing to inform them.
After this vision faded, the Shadowed Lady seemed exhausted and more or less embarrassed, apologizing for us seeing an ugly side of her and sending us away from her presence to return to Schnapps. To describe where we had been in her presence: a void. Black. Darkness. We could "see" her, but she practically blended in with the shadows all around. I couldn't tell you how she looked, but she definitely had hair, and maybe horns.
Schnapps answered some questions, of which I have already provided some answers in the prior passages. Some questions require more investigation, but no threats are required if you want information from him.
Thus concludes my report.
Addendum
Laby reporting in! I did notice in the tardiness of this addendum that some information has been missing, as addressed by Banastre Rowe. After gathering the fruit of a strange flora specimen that seemed to absorb the light around it, the-Sun-in-Shadow requested personally to our party to destroy any other flora that had any properties that could make it special, in any regard. Upon rejecting this, the Shadowed Lady proceeded to show us events of the past, as explained in the full report.
A conjecture of mine is that the goddess of fertility we witnessed, likely a relative of the-Sun-in-Shadow, has their domains regard uncommon flora that isn't related to shadows.
Addendum 2
I am very interested to continue following these strange occurances, please contact me if you know anything about Sun-in-Shadow, Sun-In-Splendor, or the "Allmother."
- Scarlet