Smoke once more rises in the horizon, beyond the old Depot. Concerns of a fire spreading through the scrub after the previous expedition to gather supplies for cisterns spread among the locals. The Council watches with concern, but takes no action. What lies beyond the walls is deadly, and after so many near-death encounters, they hesitate to send more villagers to investigate.
However, if survivors are coming in from the other villages, perhaps these are more survivors?
-Amati spent time attempting to calm the populace and successfully managed to decrease tension between the West Village members and the incoming OSR refugees, though there is still underlying conflict due to the extreme cultural differences between the groups.
-Atani and Taylen went to visit the Varibara and in the process Atani saw the Creature in the Scrubs, which quickly fled. Taylen saw the Varibara’s reaction to the creature and while he and Atani were out and about the Varibara followed them around.
-Alice attempted to figure out what the nature of the strange events that have been occurring is.
“The chosen of the Elders. Occasionally you’re finding references to strange or unusual events that occur. Crises averted under the guidance of the Elders. And maybe, that might be related.” Alice gained an asset for investigation about the Elders.
Question: “Is there a reasoning for these things happening”
Answer: “One thing is true in all the literature about the Elders: they are omnipotent gods. Truetopia flourished under their guidance. Now that the Elders are gone, these strange occurrences have been happening. It is not unreasonable, regardless of your faith, to deduce that these events occurring have a direct correlation to the absence of the Elders.”
-Lianna finds something that was drug away as she was out gathering things in the forest. Atani and Lianna both recognize what they look like. They follow the tracks for some time and then find that it comes to a dead end.
-The next morning, we’re summoned by the Council. Among the sightings of this creature stalking around West Village, signs of smoke have begun to appear around the village. We’re addressed by Vani, an older woman who usually focuses more on community activity and organization. I work with her a good deal due to mutual interest. She informs us that there are signs of other refugees out in the Scrubs and would like us to find them and figure out what their intentions are. We’re to head East of the village at sunset and look for people.
-Talked to Commander Jenkins who informed us that it could be more OSR members or apparitions and monsters. At night time, as long as we’re quiet with no lights, we should travel in single file in small groups and we shouldn’t draw too much attention. Its better to do this out in open areas, but if its a bright night, follow the brush line and be wary and pace yourself. She also believes that part of what drove their connection to us (Azphar’s prophecy) relates to something that sounds like the Creature in the Scrub as something new and recent that the OSR has been concerned about. She believes it was put there to actively hunt people.
-We end up leaving in the very early morning instead and Rosebud and Vani see us off. After two days, we spot campfire smoke on the horizon. As we draw near, we find a weird overgrown structure, clearly aged for generations. Vance and Taylen recognize it as similar to the Depot they found in session 1.
-As I approach the structure, I’m shot in the foot with an arrow and an individual warns us to step no further. Alice proclaims that we’re from West Village, and an older woman in a wheel chair rolls out from a hiding spot. She interrogates us for a bit, and then brings us into the structure which appears to be a hidden camp.
-She says to others to notify Vaughn of our presence and not to tell Gideon. We’re taken into a cellar with a table. At this table is a person of indeterminate gender with chitinous skin in a dress/suit combo, a young woman in a bright yellow dress observing us who claims to have seen us before. The woman with the chitinous skin seems to have some kind of symbiotic entity. The woman in the wheelchair asks us to take a seat. There’s a chef in the background chopping with something coming out of his arm. Bridgette is the woman in the wheelchair. Vaughn is comprised of a host Ann and the symbiot V. Lucille is the woman in the yellow dress. Mehdi is the chef.
-We recognize Lucille as someone who was “chosen” about 2 years ago. She and Taylen have a relationship. They mention something called the Gate and that most of them were chosen to fight for the Elders. Something about fighting a group of people made of stone. Taylen made friends with one of the stone things?
-Lucille was with the other chosen at the time, being trained, and the facility she was at began collapsing when Vaughn pulled her out. She is unaware of what happened to the others. At the mention of the stone people, Bridgette and Gideon (who we haven’t met) were involved in the Elders’ war with the people of stone. She calls it The Recursion War and describes it as a fact. She and others got tired of the fighting and found out that the stone people weren’t monsters, just people, and deserted. V pops up and says that they were involved with maintaining the Elders’ mistakes, but its been about 15-20 years since V and Aughn had been to West Village. Mehdi, Vaughn, and a few others were pulled away. Mehdi adds that something the Elders were messing with ended up releasing something that started eating through the Elders’ domain. They spent a lot of time fighting these eating beings. They’ve been at this place for about 2 and a half months, which is exactly when the Elders stopped choosing people and about the same time the Gate blew up. The Gate got cut off, and left some of the chosen on the other side?
-Mehdi asks Taylen how long we’ve known about the Elders (about 250ish years), but for Mehdi they had only known about the Elders for about 12 years. This implies that Vaughn was chosen about 243 years back, and Mehdi and Bridgette were chosen about 230ish years ago. “The Elders are geocidal child stealing maniacs trying to wipe out people on the other side of the Gate which I blew up because it was powered by a person," Taylen says
-He continues to say that the Elders have no special powers, just advanced technology, and they steal us away because we have magic and send us off to fight their wars.
-Aughn pipes up and says that the Elders that they served with fought alongside the Chosen, and while they don’t condone their actions, they are hesitant to immediately condone them. V thinks we should kill the OSR in the village.
-Upon bringing up the OSR, Bridgette and Mehdi seem confused by the Recursion portion of it. Power Division Recursion X is the units they were assigned to, X being a placeholder for whichever group they’re part of. Mehdi and Vaughn were 12, Bridgette and Gideon were 1.
-Gideon enters the room as we’re eating, and we’re informed that he’s still drank the kool-aid on the Elders. He seems to believe that they were in the right for what they did and that a higher power may have been guiding them. There’s a palpable tension that Gideon brings to the room. His faith isn’t necessarily orthodox compared to the Cult of the Elders, and he believes that even if the Elders are not gods, they’ve still brought out the best of the Chosen and have brought wondrous technologies to the villages. He compares them to messengers or prophets.
-As we’re eating Lucille gets pale and asks if we were followed. In response, Bridgette teleports? to grab her bow and then teleports outside. I quickly follow and climb on a roof to look for a portal since someone mentions hounds, but find nothing. We’re attacked by assassin vines and vorpal hounds.
-During the fray, Taylen summons an illusion of the Creature in the Scrub that becomes real. We all immediately begin to retreat and once out of combat with Mehdi, Vaughn, Bridgett, and Gideon, Alice sets up the cypher she was given which provides us a fairly tight shelter for the night. The Creature in the Scrub lingers for about 15 minutes to half an hour, circling us a handful of times before leaving.
-After much argument and disagreement, we decided to return to West Village with Gideon, Mehdi, and Lucille, and as it turns out, Lucille is Council member Vani’s granddaughter. -The Creature in the Scrubs seems to have potentially caused the glitch that summoned the hyena’s in session 1, can mark people for death causing them to be stunned when they come in contact with it. The OSR’s previous encounters have caused them to determine that engaging is just a bad idea. It seems to have a degree of intelligence, but does not seem to explicitly malevolent. It did not explicitly attack any members of our party. It is not invincible, as Atani did damage to it, its just super strong.