March 22, 2022

Hook

Aphotic Silence 2

Plot Synopsis

Fulgurite arrives in the night, seeking out any hint of active civilization and finding the tavern the party is staying at. He elects to meditate away the night, as the others decide to take shifts. Fish, on first shift, sees many of the squidlike creatures beginning to crawl out of the ocean near the end of his shift. Culumbo, on second shift, witnesses a veritable parade of these creatures heading from the shore to the fountain and back. They appear to be placing something inside the bulb at the fountain’s top.
The next morning, a bishop is standing near the fountain with a ledger in hand. A few cultist guards accompany them. The party pays a visit to the library, learning that the city is named Vy’enkko and has always been built on this massive skeleton. Furthermore, it used to be a normal, if isolated, village subsisting mostly on fishing. There were also priesthoods of Ra and Almar, well respected in the city. The cult’s chapel on the hill was absent in years past. The temples have since been torn down. Beowulf finds a children’s fishing tutorial book, and Fish digs up a journal from someone named Gladiia, a member of a mysterious organization named the Hunters of the Abyss.
People are beginning to form a large, spiral-like line in the central plaza several hours before the ritual. Confused on where to go next, the party decides to search for Skadi. They remember she carried some sort of Almarian defer, and look for divine units. This search takes them to the old temples, where Skadi barely saves Maris from being noticed by a patrol of cultists. She then fills them in on what happened to the old temples - they were torn down in the time between when she lived in Vy’enkko and when she returned from adventuring.
The party breaks into the old Almarian temple, which is another library maintained by the church that includes their holy texts. They discover a wealth of information regarding a figure in cult mythology called the Geneszoic, who is revered as a martyr. Rubbings depict it battling against the Hunters of the Abyss, referred to by the cult as “demons” of some sort, and nearly securing a victory before the Ra’ite and Almarian high priests defeat it and seal it, still living, away.
Upon exiting, the party puts down the two cultists guarding the temple who they slipped past. The ritual is about to begin, and squads of cultists are now patrolling the streets rounding up any stragglers…

Kioni game

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