Core Delvelopment

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==Blurb (Short Episode Description)==
Hospital visiting hours, accusations, ledgers recording foul deeds, storm clouds, missing cows, church sermons, and carriages. Core Delvelopment is a Darksome Delve actual play podcast. 
==Non Player Characters==
* Martia Carmichael
* Kasin Zahdoc
* Merryweather Jones
* Erebus Altheim
* Henry Stewart
* Richard Mansing
*
==Plot Summary==
Mary begins the day by visiting Martia Carmichael in the hospital. Recognizing Mary's role in saving her life (see episode Trauma Poetry), Martia gives Mary a magic wand to help her while she doesn't have magic. Mary accepts the gift and is about to leave when Kasin Zadoc enters Martia's hospital room. He accuses Mary of stealing an important book of his and blackmailing him with it, but Mary doesn't know what he's talking about. She later uses the wand to locate the book in the possession of Merryweather Jones and summons it to her, thinking that if she returns the book to Zadoc, he'd believe her innocent. Before she returns it, however, she looks through the book and sees that the Duca family is being set up for financial ruin in a future stock market crash orchestrated by Zadoc. Book in hand, Mary goes to Sadie Duca/Anne Jopling to relay the information, but she's found by Zadoc before she has time to explain why she has the book. During the ensuing magical combat, Mary is struck by a bolt of lightning from Zadoc's magical orb and is suddenly transported.
She finds herself in a memory of her life in 16th century London. She and her friend Anne (not in Sadie's body) are looking for Anne's cow, and Mary relives the happy memory, falling back into a time when she subconsciously suppressed her magic. After finding the cow, she's struck by lightning again and transported to a different memory, this time of her and her father Henry in church. The sermon is about magic and the dangers of witchcraft, and it makes Mary angry. She realizes that she's currently trapped within her memories by Zadoc's magical orb. Knowing this, she chooses to engage with the current memory, striking up conversation with her now-fiancée Richard. She is then teleported to a third memory, where she and Anne are walking along the busy streets of London. Suddenly, a carriage hits Anne and kills her, and Mary sees a swarm of devils trying to take Anne's soul to Hell. In a desperate act of love for her friend, Mary uses her magic to ward of the devils and transport Anne's soul to a different realm through a portal that Mary also gets sucked into, plopping her into Erebus' farm and not knowing where Anne is.
Once the last memory is finished, Mary returns to the present and sees Zadoc approaching her to take the book. Mary breaks free of the orb's spell, taking the orb and reliving one last memory. Child-Mary and her father are in the chapel after the burial of Mary's mother. Her father promises to keep Mary safe, and current-Mary realizes that her father knew about her magic and surmises that her mother might have had magic, too. Returning to herself knowing that her birth father Henry and her adoptive father Erebus both support her and love her for who she is, Mary burns Zadoc's book with a burst of her own magic. She leaves Zadoc speechless in the street with a new purpose: nurturing the magic that is a part of her, that can never be hidden or taken away.
Category:Episodes Category:Season 2024