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<blockquote data-quote="Lylandra" data-source="post: 7281486" data-attributes="member: 6816692"><p>As we expected, the team returns to the site in the early morning. One person, who we think might be the druid gets all angry about his missing shark. We seize the opportunity to overpower the team leader, a Tiefling they call Finona, to KO her bodyguards (Mr. Carlyle's job) and to send the druid and the specialists to the realm of dreams (Auryn's fey magic). </p><p></p><p>We tie up the excavation team and heal those we had to hurt in the process. Auryn tries to talk to Finona to get more information and maybe get her to their side. She tells the Tiefling about the gruesome death of her employer, Bergeron, at the hands of some unknown entity and suggests that she surely wouldn't want to end like him. However, Finona doesn't respond as we had hoped as she gets all silent and says that she doesn't want to believe what Auryn said. Only when we explain that we are RHC agents, Finona starts to see the truth in our words.</p><p></p><p>She seems both shocked and depressed when she starts to explain what she was trying to accomplish. She says that Bergeron sent her to secure this portal and to seal it up for good. He trusted only her to get the job done as there have been mishaps with similar excavations in the past which had disastrous results for the archaeologists. She herself is an expert, so she'll use a method which surpasses the "only temporal" sealing methods of the Ancients. She says she can even prevent the forming of planar pocket dimensions, so it'll all be safe and the golden seal can be secured safely afterwards. </p><p></p><p>Finona also says that Bergeron has been more interested in the seal's engraved scriptures which seemed a bit odd to her as the man was widely known as a sponsor of museums. Mr. Carlyle and especially Auryn are still not convinced that removing the golden seal would be a wise decision as they both fear that some disaster could disturb the permanent wards Finona mentioned in her process and opening the portal is something that should be avoided at all cost. We offer the now unemployed and seemingly grieving Finona to ask Delft for an occupation in the RHC research team, as well as professional protection should she turn out to be loyal to us and our cause and the Tiefling seems to be generally interested.</p><p></p><p>We return to the surface and bring Finona and her team to the Inspiracion, so that the three archaeologists may discuss further proceedings. The Tiefling releases the crew of the Dracon of their service as they are no longer needed and the privateers happily sail away as they have already been paid for. (<span style="color: #008000"> Basically a win-win-situation for us all. Also, good riddance!</span>). Finona also mentions a letter from Bergeron which she promises to show to us later. But first, we all have to discuss what to do with the golden seal. </p><p></p><p>After a lot of options were talked about in more or less heated discussions <span style="color: #008000">(for example, warning the government of Ber as the seal is basically in front of their border, employing a constant watch/outpost so no one can disturb or steal the seal, building a stone sarcophagus so that no one can reach the damn thing, placing more magical wards around the seal to prevent natural disasters from breaking the seal etc.)</span>, we finally agree that too many people already know of the seal's existence. And as the thing is made out of pure gold, it might attract a lot of thieves who care much less about the consequences than Paco. So it would be wise to recover and replace the seal and bring it to the RHC HQ where it can be safely stored and analyzed. Finona explains that the portal will be secure after her ritual and we can still bury the site under heavy stones should we feel the need to do so, even if the seal already survived centuries. After a bit back and forth, even Paco de los Loros can agree to this plan. </p><p></p><p>We decide to secure the seal in the morrow. Because Mr. Carlyle is in serious need of some quiet time and we don't want to leave the seal without surveillance, both he and Auryn decide to spend a night at the bottom of the sea. (<span style="color: #008000">"Sleeping with the fishes", eh? We really shouldn't tell Cippiano too much about our undersea adventure</span>)</p><p></p><p>We wake in the middle of the night as something above the surface seems to have caught fire. When we return to the ships, we see that the crew of the Inspiracion, plus Margit and Flying Spark are in combat with slimes and a hydra. Meanwhile, Dr. Meredith's cutter is burning brightly. </p><p></p><p>As the situation is in utter chaos, we take the matter into our own hands. We ask Margit to stop shooting at the slimes and save the wounded while Auryn and Carlyle take care of the hydra who's about to snack one of the dwarves of the crew. Flying Spark is tasked with eliminating the slimes with his magic. Thanks to our precise strikes, we are able to save the dwarf and keep the casualties on deck to a minimum level. </p><p></p><p>However, the three archaeologists are nowhere to be seen, so we search for them below deck. We find two of them in one of the ship's common rooms: Both are dead, lying in a puddle of blood with their jaws wide open and their brains missing. Auryn needs a moment to pull herself together and call for Margit. Carlyle is more quick to react and he finds a very strong aura of Apet energy emanating from the whole room. Dr. Meredith is nowhere to be found, so was suspect that the creature Sijhen might be still possessing her and found a method to hide its own aura and deceive us all. </p><p></p><p>We ask Margit and Flying Spark what in the name of the Titans happened and whether they have seen anything suspicious, any sign they could have missed. The two say that everything was peaceful and normal until suddenly fire broke out aboard the cutter and then suddenly monsters appeared on the Inspiracion. We all come to the conclusion that the suspected amulet could be pretty harmless and was a cleverly laid trap by Sijhen. </p><p></p><p>The moment the cutter is about to sink and stops burning, Carlyle takes a last look inside and finds signs that someone teleported away from there. We don't know where Meredith could have gone, but Sijhen is surely up to no good. </p><p></p><p>Then we find the letter Finona mentioned earlier. The letter confirms all she mentioned previously and also reveals that someone of Bergeron's men must have been watching us. He also mentions agents of the unseen court which we haven't seen for ourselves yet (<span style="color: #008000">or maybe he refers to Auryn as member of the Vekeshi? She suspects this might very well be the case, but plays as surprised as Mr. Carlyle</span>).</p><p></p><p>Bergeron ends with an invitation to a trip by train in winter and a meeting he'd have to attend to. He says something about a mysterious group he seems to be part of. To our surprise, Bergeron seems to be familiar with a certain "Master Rackus" whom he doesn't seem to be too fond of as he caused some ruckus in the ziggurat of Jiese (so that's where he got that mysterious amulet from!).</p><p></p><p>Mr. Carlyle gets the impression that Bergeron didn't think too highly of anyone besides himself and was basically an arrogant pig while Auryn disagrees with his judgement. She says that no sane person would speak highly of Rock Rackus, especially not Mr. Carlyle himself, and that she is sure Bergeron simply wanted to show his admiration and deep care for Finona. She adds that Finona's death was both tragic and wasteful and that she'd have surely deserved better than this. </p><p></p><p>(<span style="color: #008000">this initial exchange about Bergeron's character was kind of amusing... "So after what happened at the exhibition, would you, especially you, have used any other words when speaking about Rock?" "Probably not" "And to be honest, after what we've seen in the bayou, this expedition was a disaster, and even if he could have mourned the loss of life, you surely wouldn't add 'be careful or you'll die in a horrible way like these guys' into a letter to your cohort" "Well yes, that would have been... distasteful". So even if he indeed sounded pretty arrogant in some parts, he did speak the truth. And Mr. Carlyle can sound really harsh when he's pissed.</span>)</p><p></p><p>Carlyle seems to take what happened to his heart as well. He is filled with guilt and says that it was his fault for not keeping a closer eye on Dr. Meredith. He's just been too self-assured and confident in their mission's sucess and not cautious enough. On top of that, he feels like death has been following him for quite a while now and that he's not sure whether anyone is safe in his company. </p><p></p><p>This time it is Auryn who snaps her colleague out of his gloom. She says that he alone surely isn't responsible for what happened to the archeaologists and their team. They all were just not as attentive as they should have been and they should have probably not both kept watch over the seal. She says that now is too late to discuss what-ifs anyway as the dead cannot be brought back and they both don't know whether they'd have been able to stop Sijhen or whether they'd just both ended up like Finona and Paco. What is more important now is that they all learn from their mistake, take some time to recuperate and then find and stop Sijhen before it can kill more people. </p><p></p><p>Carlyle sees reason in her words and together they perform funeral rites for the deceased, so that they at least can find peace. Mr. Carlyle uses his ability to contact the dead to reach out to Finona's spirit. He tries to apologize that he wasn't there to save her and asks her whether she can explain what happened. Finona shows him scenes of her childhood when she lived in poverty and where she met a father-like figure, who was a tiefling, like her. This person, Bergeron, cared for her and payed for her tuition. She then shows him a more recent image where Bergeron grew a bit distant from her and was surrounded by mysterious shadowy people.Finally, she shows him a vision on the attack on her: A dark, tentacled beast performed a mental blast and then attacked her while she was unable to fight back. Carlyle thanks Finona for the visions and guides her spirit to the afterlife where she'll surely meet her beloved mentor Bergeron again.</p><p></p><p>Carlyle explains them all what happened between him and Finona. Now it is Auyn who gets eerily silent. After a while, she says that Carlyle has been given a very special gift and that she's sure Finona can rest in peace should she really be reunited with Bergeron. </p><p></p><p>(<span style="color: #008000">Ouch. Right in the feels. To be honest, when we found all the dead people below deck, we felt like we had utterly failed. We tried to find out what we did wrong or where we could have been more inquisitive, but Sijhen had been too intelligent. Meredith was acting all normal and the amulet was the perfect culprit. And even if we had split up our watches, we don't know whether or not Sijhen would have simply de-brained one of us as well (Sijhen's stunning attack seemed like some kind of mind blast, so fail your save and get eaten...). And losing Finona hurt. Even more as we got as glimpse at what kind of person she had been. </span></p><p><span style="color: #008000"></span></p><p><span style="color: #008000">In hindsight, the narrative was spot on. We really reached our lowest point there. Carlyle was shaken. And Auryn couldn't get around comparing Finona to herself, as she also has a mentor she really cares about. She had to put herself together so she wouldn't cry – after all, Carlyle needed her strength this time. And so we had to recuperate and find a way to find and stop Sijhen...</span>)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lylandra, post: 7281486, member: 6816692"] As we expected, the team returns to the site in the early morning. One person, who we think might be the druid gets all angry about his missing shark. We seize the opportunity to overpower the team leader, a Tiefling they call Finona, to KO her bodyguards (Mr. Carlyle's job) and to send the druid and the specialists to the realm of dreams (Auryn's fey magic). We tie up the excavation team and heal those we had to hurt in the process. Auryn tries to talk to Finona to get more information and maybe get her to their side. She tells the Tiefling about the gruesome death of her employer, Bergeron, at the hands of some unknown entity and suggests that she surely wouldn't want to end like him. However, Finona doesn't respond as we had hoped as she gets all silent and says that she doesn't want to believe what Auryn said. Only when we explain that we are RHC agents, Finona starts to see the truth in our words. She seems both shocked and depressed when she starts to explain what she was trying to accomplish. She says that Bergeron sent her to secure this portal and to seal it up for good. He trusted only her to get the job done as there have been mishaps with similar excavations in the past which had disastrous results for the archaeologists. She herself is an expert, so she'll use a method which surpasses the "only temporal" sealing methods of the Ancients. She says she can even prevent the forming of planar pocket dimensions, so it'll all be safe and the golden seal can be secured safely afterwards. Finona also says that Bergeron has been more interested in the seal's engraved scriptures which seemed a bit odd to her as the man was widely known as a sponsor of museums. Mr. Carlyle and especially Auryn are still not convinced that removing the golden seal would be a wise decision as they both fear that some disaster could disturb the permanent wards Finona mentioned in her process and opening the portal is something that should be avoided at all cost. We offer the now unemployed and seemingly grieving Finona to ask Delft for an occupation in the RHC research team, as well as professional protection should she turn out to be loyal to us and our cause and the Tiefling seems to be generally interested. We return to the surface and bring Finona and her team to the Inspiracion, so that the three archaeologists may discuss further proceedings. The Tiefling releases the crew of the Dracon of their service as they are no longer needed and the privateers happily sail away as they have already been paid for. ([COLOR="#008000"] Basically a win-win-situation for us all. Also, good riddance![/COLOR]). Finona also mentions a letter from Bergeron which she promises to show to us later. But first, we all have to discuss what to do with the golden seal. After a lot of options were talked about in more or less heated discussions [COLOR="#008000"](for example, warning the government of Ber as the seal is basically in front of their border, employing a constant watch/outpost so no one can disturb or steal the seal, building a stone sarcophagus so that no one can reach the damn thing, placing more magical wards around the seal to prevent natural disasters from breaking the seal etc.)[/COLOR], we finally agree that too many people already know of the seal's existence. And as the thing is made out of pure gold, it might attract a lot of thieves who care much less about the consequences than Paco. So it would be wise to recover and replace the seal and bring it to the RHC HQ where it can be safely stored and analyzed. Finona explains that the portal will be secure after her ritual and we can still bury the site under heavy stones should we feel the need to do so, even if the seal already survived centuries. After a bit back and forth, even Paco de los Loros can agree to this plan. We decide to secure the seal in the morrow. Because Mr. Carlyle is in serious need of some quiet time and we don't want to leave the seal without surveillance, both he and Auryn decide to spend a night at the bottom of the sea. ([COLOR="#008000"]"Sleeping with the fishes", eh? We really shouldn't tell Cippiano too much about our undersea adventure[/COLOR]) We wake in the middle of the night as something above the surface seems to have caught fire. When we return to the ships, we see that the crew of the Inspiracion, plus Margit and Flying Spark are in combat with slimes and a hydra. Meanwhile, Dr. Meredith's cutter is burning brightly. As the situation is in utter chaos, we take the matter into our own hands. We ask Margit to stop shooting at the slimes and save the wounded while Auryn and Carlyle take care of the hydra who's about to snack one of the dwarves of the crew. Flying Spark is tasked with eliminating the slimes with his magic. Thanks to our precise strikes, we are able to save the dwarf and keep the casualties on deck to a minimum level. However, the three archaeologists are nowhere to be seen, so we search for them below deck. We find two of them in one of the ship's common rooms: Both are dead, lying in a puddle of blood with their jaws wide open and their brains missing. Auryn needs a moment to pull herself together and call for Margit. Carlyle is more quick to react and he finds a very strong aura of Apet energy emanating from the whole room. Dr. Meredith is nowhere to be found, so was suspect that the creature Sijhen might be still possessing her and found a method to hide its own aura and deceive us all. We ask Margit and Flying Spark what in the name of the Titans happened and whether they have seen anything suspicious, any sign they could have missed. The two say that everything was peaceful and normal until suddenly fire broke out aboard the cutter and then suddenly monsters appeared on the Inspiracion. We all come to the conclusion that the suspected amulet could be pretty harmless and was a cleverly laid trap by Sijhen. The moment the cutter is about to sink and stops burning, Carlyle takes a last look inside and finds signs that someone teleported away from there. We don't know where Meredith could have gone, but Sijhen is surely up to no good. Then we find the letter Finona mentioned earlier. The letter confirms all she mentioned previously and also reveals that someone of Bergeron's men must have been watching us. He also mentions agents of the unseen court which we haven't seen for ourselves yet ([COLOR="#008000"]or maybe he refers to Auryn as member of the Vekeshi? She suspects this might very well be the case, but plays as surprised as Mr. Carlyle[/COLOR]). Bergeron ends with an invitation to a trip by train in winter and a meeting he'd have to attend to. He says something about a mysterious group he seems to be part of. To our surprise, Bergeron seems to be familiar with a certain "Master Rackus" whom he doesn't seem to be too fond of as he caused some ruckus in the ziggurat of Jiese (so that's where he got that mysterious amulet from!). Mr. Carlyle gets the impression that Bergeron didn't think too highly of anyone besides himself and was basically an arrogant pig while Auryn disagrees with his judgement. She says that no sane person would speak highly of Rock Rackus, especially not Mr. Carlyle himself, and that she is sure Bergeron simply wanted to show his admiration and deep care for Finona. She adds that Finona's death was both tragic and wasteful and that she'd have surely deserved better than this. ([COLOR="#008000"]this initial exchange about Bergeron's character was kind of amusing... "So after what happened at the exhibition, would you, especially you, have used any other words when speaking about Rock?" "Probably not" "And to be honest, after what we've seen in the bayou, this expedition was a disaster, and even if he could have mourned the loss of life, you surely wouldn't add 'be careful or you'll die in a horrible way like these guys' into a letter to your cohort" "Well yes, that would have been... distasteful". So even if he indeed sounded pretty arrogant in some parts, he did speak the truth. And Mr. Carlyle can sound really harsh when he's pissed.[/COLOR]) Carlyle seems to take what happened to his heart as well. He is filled with guilt and says that it was his fault for not keeping a closer eye on Dr. Meredith. He's just been too self-assured and confident in their mission's sucess and not cautious enough. On top of that, he feels like death has been following him for quite a while now and that he's not sure whether anyone is safe in his company. This time it is Auryn who snaps her colleague out of his gloom. She says that he alone surely isn't responsible for what happened to the archeaologists and their team. They all were just not as attentive as they should have been and they should have probably not both kept watch over the seal. She says that now is too late to discuss what-ifs anyway as the dead cannot be brought back and they both don't know whether they'd have been able to stop Sijhen or whether they'd just both ended up like Finona and Paco. What is more important now is that they all learn from their mistake, take some time to recuperate and then find and stop Sijhen before it can kill more people. Carlyle sees reason in her words and together they perform funeral rites for the deceased, so that they at least can find peace. Mr. Carlyle uses his ability to contact the dead to reach out to Finona's spirit. He tries to apologize that he wasn't there to save her and asks her whether she can explain what happened. Finona shows him scenes of her childhood when she lived in poverty and where she met a father-like figure, who was a tiefling, like her. This person, Bergeron, cared for her and payed for her tuition. She then shows him a more recent image where Bergeron grew a bit distant from her and was surrounded by mysterious shadowy people.Finally, she shows him a vision on the attack on her: A dark, tentacled beast performed a mental blast and then attacked her while she was unable to fight back. Carlyle thanks Finona for the visions and guides her spirit to the afterlife where she'll surely meet her beloved mentor Bergeron again. Carlyle explains them all what happened between him and Finona. Now it is Auyn who gets eerily silent. After a while, she says that Carlyle has been given a very special gift and that she's sure Finona can rest in peace should she really be reunited with Bergeron. ([COLOR="#008000"]Ouch. Right in the feels. To be honest, when we found all the dead people below deck, we felt like we had utterly failed. We tried to find out what we did wrong or where we could have been more inquisitive, but Sijhen had been too intelligent. Meredith was acting all normal and the amulet was the perfect culprit. And even if we had split up our watches, we don't know whether or not Sijhen would have simply de-brained one of us as well (Sijhen's stunning attack seemed like some kind of mind blast, so fail your save and get eaten...). And losing Finona hurt. Even more as we got as glimpse at what kind of person she had been. In hindsight, the narrative was spot on. We really reached our lowest point there. Carlyle was shaken. And Auryn couldn't get around comparing Finona to herself, as she also has a mentor she really cares about. She had to put herself together so she wouldn't cry – after all, Carlyle needed her strength this time. And so we had to recuperate and find a way to find and stop Sijhen...[/COLOR]) [/QUOTE]
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