Session 11

> *"Nobody is to leave this city without permission for the foreseeable future, the risks outside of these walls are far too high. Too many have lost themselves to beast and blade, we say no more until we can destroy them."* - **Captain Tyvan, overheard in parts by Elora and Caspar**
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## The Night Is Dark

### Location(s)

* Ostwick
	+ Grand Avenue
	+ Docks
		- The Blood Viper
	+ The Timber Drum

### Characters

BalbusCaspar

Drystan

Elora

Kynedrin

Vay

**Setting off with intent to chase down these rumours of 'men with blue' in the forest, they learn that the City-State is plagued with problems and a continuing refugee crisis. Collecting their own little crisis of Drystan from the Blood Viper, they head off into the area known as the Timber Drum. After a few setbacks, they happen upon a busy camp, where madness rapidly unfolds...**

## Session

### Corruption

As the individual let out a cry of pain and collapsed to the ground, Vay rushed over to the unconscious form of Drystan and poured a potion down his throat, slapping him awake. As the young man rested up against the trunk of Elora's tree, Vay strode back over to the now disarmed individual. Before he reached him though, he heard the rest of his party approach, the heavy footfalls of Caspar being a dead giveaway. Seeing the now disembodied head of his earlier kill, he playfully kicked it towards his Nevarran friend, hoping he would trip. However, as he pushed the wounded individual over and trapped his hands, a dagger to his throat, he heard a sickening crunch.

Caspar, too drawn forward to notice the rolling form, stepped determinedly one more step, as a deep squelching sound responded to him. Fearing he had stepped in waste or mud, he looked down to instead see he had stepped in a skull. Where once had rested the eyes and nose of the figure, the foot of Caspar Anaxes now lay. Feeling that this was pretty kickass actually, he continued his path, moving towards the captured man, coming to a halt out of his periphery.

Pretty intimidated now, the figure complied to questions that were asked, with Balbus then appearing in the top of his line of sight. They asked who he was, and how many of them there were, to which he resignedly answered that they were nobody in particular. They were those who took from caravans and groups, especially items that they felt they didn't need or shouldn't have. No massive raids, no conquests or murders, but instead lifting some property for the use of others. He also presumed that since they were asking him, the rest of his group lay dead.

They asked him what they hell they were doing stealing lyrium, and he responded that he had no idea that's what it was, simply that it was something a group had come here several times to exchanges, and that drew their eye. They had no idea it caused what it did, and while he knew it was often seen around Templars, something about the regularity tipped them off that it was weird. He said that his leaders knew they get their supplies from official channels, nothing smuggler-y like this.

Gradually lessening the pressure on him, the group grew more and more concerned as this information continued to flow. Having already encountered stolen lyrium before, and the reactions that Vay and Balbus had earlier being all too familiar, the two of them almost immediately ridiculed the man and his groups decision to steal it. He again reiterated that it was something that looked very worthwhile, that would fetch coin and could be used to help out other issues. The madness that the party saw had apparently been something very recent. When asked who they had taken it from, he mentioned a group of normal looking people that met a different person every time, yet always in the same place. The last one or two times they had been visited by a man in plate armour.

Caspar then pulled out of his pack a drawing, one that he'd sketched back in the undercrofts of Lady Sennoya's estate. It featured upon it the symbol of the Purifiers, a sword surrounded by blazing fire. Letting the figure sit up, he took it in his good hand, before saying this wasn't what he saw, but close. Vay then sketched on the other side the symbol of the regular Templar Order, and said that was closer to it. Again they called him stupid, stealing from Templars, but he again reaffirmed that they didn't steal from Templars themselves, and how odd it was for such a deal to happen covertly.

Demanding that he show them to this aforementioned site, he agreed to, not really having any other choice, and it being too far for him to just point to. Followed closely behind by Vay and Balbus, Kynedrin keeping in tow, he followed old tracks and foot prints to the location, Vay checking to make sure it was in fact lyrium in the camp that had set off his feelings. Caspar and Elora followed further back, Caspar carrying the still weak Drystan in his arms. Vay's head began to throb again, causing him to hold back, while Balbus' sense of nausea grew very strong, a sulphuric taste to the air that got stronger the closer they got.

It took some time, but when they reached the camp it was a horrifying sight. As they crested the trees, they saw an utterly devastated arena of blood and gore. Bodies were strewn about the clearing, some figures entirely torn apart, others turns seemingly inside out as pools of organs were slopped together near bodies. As Balbus took a moment to compose himself, resting on a tree, he saw the shattered body of another figure, its spine clearly shattered by being dashed against the tree. The others noticed this too, as some were indented in the large trees that enclosed the space, giant blood smears tainting the otherwise verdant landscape.

One thing broke all of this though, as a very large form lay motionless across a dying campfire, surrounded by flipped tables and scattered notes or papers. It was clad in armour, which Caspar noted to be Templar in make, but what remained of it was very little. Multiple perforation and serration marks pocked the metal cage, while it appeared to buckle outwards on the torso, as if the body inside had grotesquely grown in odd proportions. A look towards this noted that the face and upper torso were a ghastly mix of bulbous flesh and tendrils, some deep red musculature having grown clear across half of the face, while on one of the arms, below the wrist was just a mass of flesh that ended in almost tentacle like appendages, upon which rested vicious hooks at the tip.

Vay and Balbus questioned their prisoner, who at this point had stuck to the sheer perimeter, very reluctant to cross it. He had warned them that they wouldn't like what they saw, as he had seen something happening while on patrol earlier on, before his own group fell to madness. Forcing him to come with them, they asked him what he had lead them to, and then whether he himself had touched anything to do with their theft, carried the lyrium, touched it or anything like that. He denied doing so, saying the lieutenants had done that, who Caspar then suspected to be the ones he had seen tearing themselves apart. When asked why he hadn't gone equally as mad, he said he had been, he remembers pure rage and anger, but, showing his hand, that as soon as he was disarmed it had faded, leaving fear and regret.

After Caspar calls the group over to the giant corpse, Balbus thinks and remembers the terrifying mentions of such entities in what little studies he could gather on magic. The nature of magic and demons means that anybody of magical power is almost instantly a target of the fade-bound spirits, their abilities causing them to act as a connecting tissue almost between the material and immaterial. Tales were spun in his readings of those who pushed the boundaries, those that had proven weak, and or those that played with powers far beyond their understanding, and had lost themselves in the process - becoming an abomination, a possessed vessel of that which acts without morals. Elora grows wary of Balbus almost immediately, while the others suggest that they need to take this to the Circle immediately. Both Balbus and Caspar state that while it is the fear of mages everywhere to have this happen, the Templars are trained specifically to counter and prevent this, though they possess no actual magical ability themselves. For one of their own to seemingly fall prey to such a threat, was a very bad sign. Balbus refuses to go to the Circle, displaying the same reluctance as back in Val Royeaux.

Looking to Kynedrin to ask him what he wanted to do, Vay having seen the Dwarf look confused and very very wary since they entered the clearing, the group saw him instead rifling near the fallen tables. Pulling at notes and papers, seemingly to try and find something that made sense of it all, he eventually came across a scroll. Asking the others to check the body for something similar, they found it, with Balbus seeing nothing but gibberish. Kynedrin stated he had found the same, and this was strange, causing him to say they were encrypted. Taking a few moments to look them over, he said he'd need time, but he could try and make headway with this. Caspar had suggested that they showed them to the First Enchanter, but the Dwarf suggested otherwise, that they had better know what they were walking in to before they brought suspicion upon themselves.

As Vay went to check on the other bodies, Elora joining to check for survivors, they all wondered what was next in store...