Dressed in neat and well-made robes, you are all part of a large Resan dinner party, along with many other guests. There’s laughter and gossip about who’s going with whom, talk of the taxes, and comments about trade as far away as the Capitol. Ariana discovers that a young woman keeps smiling at her and giving her extra beer. The feast is plain but good, There’s hummus, flat breads, spiced meats of different kinds, olives and even some sliced apricots.
Then fearsome divs emerge from the doors, windows, and thin air and begin tearing apart the feasters, turning the event into a macabre banquet of their own. Ariana witnesses the woman who flirted with her have her head ripped off, and it rolls to Ariana’s feet. You all reach for weapons that aren’t there as chaos ensues, with people stampeding to get out, and divs slashing them down. All around you are screams, horrible munching sounds and the tang of blood. Spying what you think is a clear window, you run for it, but oncoming divs slash at you unless you can escape.
Quenly's dragon flies for the exit...
"Eeeep!"
Quenly dives through the window—
...
—and lands with a thud on the sands of town square of Resa, watching the flapping doors open and close. It’s quiet. Not a div in sight.
★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★
Quenly’s dragon feels div claws slash through his little body, and he’s bleeding, fleeing ahead of the shrieking Divs.
Bamf!
In a puff of incense-laden smoke, a tall Sepid Div appear in the room. He backhands one of the other divs. “Fools! Do you think the Black Moon wants them DEAD?”
Flapping his wings despire the searing pain, the little dragon feels his life start seeping away, his heart thumping as his wounds continue to bleed. Disoriented, he crashes into a wall. As the room spins—
...
—he also lands with a rolling thud on the sands of Resa, wings and tail off-kilter, body whole but weaker, soul feeling like it has rips deep within it.
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Fendel finds himself in a woman’s robes. They are dirty and need mending, and your feet and leg muscles ache from having run a long way. Panting, you make it to a road, where you see a traveller coming towards you. Dark-skinned and well-made, he is dressed in gleaming armor, made by the scales of gold dragon, and Fendel immediately recognizes that he’s bearing the crook-and-flail symbol of Osiris, a lawful good Osirian deity of the afterlife and rebirth.
“Please...” you call out. “Please, for the love of all that’s holy, help us.” There is desperation in your voice, and a deep seated shame as well. You hate that you have been reduced to this, begging a stranger by the side of the road. But what can you do?
“Good woman, are you alright?” The stranger asks, gently. He offers you water, and you gulp it greedily. It’s been so long since you’ve drunk anything. “I’m Ermias Dallia. What can I do to help you?’
“I’m Qari, my lord. My village — Resa — has been taken by an evil sorceress! She rounds up the healthy ones, and they return as undead horrors. There’s no stopping her!”
Your hands shake, but he takes them and says, “Have no fear.” To your amazement, your fear drops away as he speaks. “Come into the shade, and we’ll speak of strategy. I will do what I can to help Resa, even if I die trying.”
The vision ends, and you find yourself back in Resa, more doors before you. Do you take another?
Ariana, you realize that your hands are clawed and very large, and that the horns on your head itch. You loom near a very familiar shaitan that’s been bound to a laboratory slab in his own cell — Marouf. The djinn is gaunt, eyes gouged out, and his skin is slick-hot with fever. You’ve been watching his decline for weeks, but the joy you find in watching people in torment is diminished when you’re with Marouf, and you don’t know why. Tell me another story of the Opaline Vault. Or finish one of the ones you told me, you demand.
“I’ve always appreciated your manners, Kabede,” Marouf says, a tone of light amusement present in his now hoarsened voice despite the dire circumstances that he’s in. “But I decline.”
I could keep you alive! you think threateningly, though you what you really wanted to say was that you’d kill him.
But Marouf always understood the compulsive nature of your lies. It’s one of the things you appreciate about him. “I wish you would. Stab me in the heart. End me. Burn me in that cleansing chamber of yours.”
I don’t want you to finish your stories! You frown. I know how they all end, they’re so predictable.
Marouf laughs, and then his laughter turns into a hacking cough that goes on and on. “Ah, my favorite liar. How you flatter me.” His once lovely baritone is as hoarse as a whisper. He coughs again. “I’ve tasted the tang of my own blood. You’ll have to finish them yourself.”
NO! I’ll finish the story for you, you say offering the beginning. In his voice, you sing, ♫ Oh I come from a plane of the great earth domain... ♫ You have the words memorized. You sing the entire song, but the shaitan no longer responds to you. You shake him, but there’s no pulse. You sit there for sometime, knowing that Tahari would want samples cultured while he was still warm. Clenching and unclenching your claws, you unlock the manacles, and carry the body to the Cleansing Room instead.
★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★
Head hazy with drugs and life sapping magic, you look up to see the Tahari glaring down upon you. “That was the last betrayal, Kabede.” Tahari binds you into the memory device and begins draining your thoughts. As you scream and wither, she begins taking notes in a journal. “Tell me how you feel. Remember, this is for science.”
You feel your own thoughts and vitality draining away before waking up in the Resa mindscape.
Taking it all in, the detective's keen mind processes and categorizes the past memories. I wish she took a closer look at the warrior so I could see if the sword we found was his.
In Fendel's mind's eye, he remembers clearly that the Paladin was not carrying a khopesh but a flail.
So much water. Eadie thrashes in a dark pit, sputtering, trying to kick up from the bottom so that she can breathe. Her heart is thudding, because the water is getting deeper by the minute. “Let me out! I can’t swim!” you yell in a man’s voice. “Throw me a rope, you bat-fouling louts!’
More water dumps on you, as you witness barrel after barrel splashing down on you. A clinical woman’s voice says, “Record how long he lasts. I need more data on the respiratory system if I’m to perfect my latest project.”
The water closes over your head, and though you thrash with all your might, you can’t hold your breath forever. You panic as water enters your lungs — and find yourself in the middle of the Resan town square, still gasping for air.
Fendel is in a thin linen robe, working the lock to the door to his cell with makeshift tools. There! You wait in the shadows for the woman they call the Black Moon to walk by, then swallow and follow her quietly at a distance. There has to be a way out of here, and the witch has to know it.
You follow Tahari into a room full of sarcophagi, stepping ever so softly. You hide behind one of them as the woman opens a secret passage in the eastern wall to a vast library. Drawn by the light, you creep forward...
Then she turns. “Going somewhere, lab rat?”
The memory ends abruptly, and you find yourself in the town square of Resa.
Dunia finds herself in the body of a small boy. The heat is searing, and you are following a frail Garundi woman wearing a silver and black pendant. “Thank you for rescuing me, Lady Tahari,” you pipe up, your small feet carrying you over the hot sands. You have memories of the sandstorm that separated you from your caravan. Why, you could have died out here.
“It’s not much farther, child,” she says, beaming as she passes you another canteen of water. “I’m just happy to find you in such good health.” She leads you into a cool, underground structure —
And the memory ends, with you emerging back into Resa.
Dressed in thin linen robes, with sores all over his body, Quenly sneaks out of Tahari’s labyrinthine facility. He lingers at the entrance of a plague laboratory, where he sees Tahari whispering to the vials of the diseases she’s culturing as though they were newborn children.
“Ooh, cackle fever, you petulant little imp. You’re progressing so nicely.” She coos to the vial, then picks up the next one. “Ooh, bubonic. Such a wonderful perfomance today. The buboes! The subjects fell like stalks of wheat before a threshing blade. But a third survived. You must do better, you naughty, naughty germ!”
She turns from her work to grab a vial marked “#14” and hold it up admiringly. “Ooh, my prize pupil. How dazzling you are! You and I will —” She breaks off, noticing you, and Quenly turns to flee into darkness —
— and emerges into the middle of the Town Square of Resa.
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He/she checks that his/her feet aren’t caught in the bottom somewhere … Laa/No, they are fine.
So why cannot I kick up to the surface? Am I downward swimming instead of up?
The merest shimmer of light reflects off the bronze betrothal band encircling a hairy knuckle on his/her left hand. Just enough to see by!
He/she releases a few precious millilitres of air from his/her nose and watches the bubbles stream upwards at a right angle …
That is the correct direction to adhhab/go! I must have been standing on the side of this Set-damned pit.
Now if I can only get there before my life/air supply is exhausted.
He/she kicks upwards resolutely, but feels him/herself tiring with the surface still many cubits away …
He/she panics as water enters his/her lungs — and she finds herself in the middle of the Resan town square, still gasping for air.
Ariana finds herself in light silk robes and dozens of jewels, walking with a number of other courtiers. “I hope she accepts our offer,” the man besides you says.
“How can she not?” you say, leading the delegation forward. “She’s a smart woman, and loves power. Surely she’ll see the advantages of peace with all we have to offer. It’s foolish not to want trade, and comforts. Heads high now. We must present our best.”
You’re ushered into a gilded room of the palace, where you and the other courtiers kneel before a dark-robed Garundi woman. “Gracious Aryana Tahari, the Black Moon who shines darkly over our lands, we come with an entreaty for peace and many, many gifts.” You and the others bring forward jewels, unguents, silks and scents. “Your knowledge of illness could be invaluable as medicine. You could become the most honored advisor of us all, leading us into a golden age. Will you consider it, Lady Tahari?”
“Gold? Jewels? Unguents? How about your first born as slaves and experimental subjects?” She raises and eyebrow and laughs. “No. Come to think of it, I want experimental subjects with more spine. Really, I have no use for any of you at alll.” She waves her hands, summoning a cloud of poisonous gas that causes the courtiers to keel over and cough up blood while the mad woman, protected by a life bubble opens up her notebook to record their deaths.
Throwing your scarf over your mouth, you try to run for safety, out of the cloud...
...and find yourself back in Resa, wheezing for air.
★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★
Fendel finds himself in a woman’s robes, feverish and coughing with the plague. You are dragging dead people our of houses, trying to figure out how you will bury them all.
But then a grand caravan arrives, headed by a well dressed garundi noblewoman in dark robes. “I’m Aryana Tahari, the Black Moon. What appears to be the problem?” She smiles graciously.
“Oh please lady, help us! We are sick! We’re so weak we cannot even bury our own dead.” You point to a pile of plague-stricken corpses awaiting burial.
The Black Moon’s smile widens. “Don’t worry, my dears, I’ll take care of everything.”
“Oh thank you, lady, thank you!”
But your relief turns to horror when Aryana Tahari animates the corpses as zombies and laughs as they march away with her....
...And the vision ends, leaving you in Resa once more.
The Memory Extraction Room is finished! Feel free to leave the Resan Mindscape, recover and decide where you’re going next.
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Ariana lands on the ground coughing and clutching at her throat. She drops to her knees. "Any more doors?" she asks her voice more raspy than usual.
Seeing that all the doors have been opened she's one of the first to leave the memory room. She actually looks happy to see Torch standing there. That place was horrible. That woman did so many terrible things. I can't imagine have her whisper to you."
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Fendel follows the others out of the mindscape. He looks back at the machine with an admiring eye, truly impressed at its construction. "Speaking practically, maintaining such records is an excellent way to capture elements that go beyond mere words or notes. A phenomenal tool really." He looks about the room, seeing the condition of some of the others. "Much as we may want to take a rest, the sands on our hourglass are running out. We need to continue our reconnoiter of the facility."
You return once again to the hub, heading north this time to the room marked, Doorway to Oblivion. The dimensions of this room are perfectly square, and every sound and motion feels profoundly distinct yet unreal. A large shrine rests against the wall, draped in a flawless black silk cloth.
Next to the shrine, someone left a large onyx key with a black and silver eclipse adorning the bow.
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Dunia's eyes widen in horror and wonder as she lays eyes on the magnificent key.
It's a key to de House of Oblivion, de tower de Lord o' All Divs kept as his home in our world. We make it out o' here alive, we got a hell of an expedition to Thuvia if we want.
Before approaching the key or silk-shrouded-shrine Dunia will scan the area as best she can for untoward energies.
Remarkable. We should take this key with us. When we know that it is safe to proceed.
The shrine has a moderate necromantic aura and strong auras of conjuration and teleportation. Do you leave it alone, or peek under it the black cloth? The key has no magical auras.
I think this is best left alone. Doorways allow things through. We do not wish to pass to Oblivion. And anything that comes in the other direction is not likely to be friendly.
The key looks safe to you! You pick it up and take it with you, leaving the black cloth on the shrine untouched.
★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★
Returning to the hub, you travel east this time, and travel cautiously into the room marked, South Archive.
Thousands of bones fill the shelves in the center of this chamber as if they were books. Tiny pictographs cover the surface of each bone. Carved into each bone is a chronicle of that person’s infection and death in ancient osiriani.
After five minutes of searching through the bones, Fendel and Rufeo find a vellum sheet in a bone scroll tube that includes Tahari’s notes on refining crystalline aether. Tahari's notes confirm that sample #14, her beloved plague called Fading Light feeds on magic, but pure magic overwhelms the disease, curing the host.
Fendel believes that with these notes, a sample of the disease, some samples of crystalline aether, and some application of skill he can manufacture doses of the cure in the Plague Laboratory. The only problem: he doesn’t have enough doses of crystalline aether yet to create cures for everyone.
BLOOD OF NETHYS
This stoppered vial holds a marbled mix of white and black fluids that swirl around one another, occasionally forming the appearance of a face for an instant. The fluid is raw magical potential that can be used in one of four ways:
What do you do next?
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I think this is best left alone. Doorways allow things through. We do not wish to pass to Oblivion.
“Good call. Don’t think I want any of what a Div demigod is selling today, thank-you.”
Events have been moving too quickly for Eadie to keep up. Though she’s not worried –– having complete faith in the abilities of her fellows.
There is another who has been curiously silent since the other Scarab Sages split from the party though.
“You usually have much more to say, GMT.”
Eadie sounds curious, not suspicious. “Have the voices in the Emerald Jewel changed since we split from the others?”
Grand Master Torch shakes his head, trying to clear it, before turning to Eadie. “It’s been worse than ever down here. In every room, I’ve been getting flashes of insight that hit me from time to time. If you ask me questions, I think I could tell you about things that happened here... but I also think I might start losing myself if I do.” He frowns. “I’m a control freak. I like to have plans and counterplans thought out for every possibility, but I’m having trouble concentrating,” he says. “And you fools aren’t helping! Nattering about and bothering your betters! I should have you all—” His eyes widen and he breaks off, abruptly. “I... have a headache, and am irritable. Please. Don’t listen to me.”
★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★
At Fendel’s suggestion, you keep heading north, reaching a room with the words, Waste Disposal written over the door. The chamber gleams when illuminated, bouncing reflections across the multitude of glass tiles covering the walls and floor. The pool in the center of this chamber is utterly still, and a small, pearlescent object glimmers at the bottom.
Fendel, Quenly and Rufeo smell the strong, almost burning tang of acid in the air as they walk through the room, realizing right away that the pool in the center of all the glass tiles is filled with an acid strong enough to strip flesh from bones. They also notice an alcove hidden behind some of the glass tiles in the Western wall. The alcove holds a canister with enough crystalline aether for four uses in experimentation, a scroll, and two vials of antiplague.
★ --- ★ --- ★ --- ★
What do you do next? The door immediately to the north of you has the words, North Archive over the door.