Candela Obscura: The Collectors

"**Candela Obscura: The Collectors**" (CO1x03) thumbnail featuring the cast.

"**Candela Obscura: The Collectors**" (CO1x03) is the third and final episode of *Candela Obscura's* first chapter featuring the Circle of the Vassal and the Veil. The Circle of the Vassal and the Veil band together one final time to close unresolved business, as a newfound terror awakens within the permeating void.

## **Synopsis**

### **Introduction**

*Obsession is a corruption that shrouds the mind. Its tendrils grow beyond the influence of bleed, as if natural to the soul. Though, the unique skill set a circle of investigators bring forth to each assignment stand guard against this vice. Relying upon the strengths of your allies is the key to survival, for deep within the rubble of a city long forgotten, the Red Hand roots itself within the fathomless, unleashing a faceless behemoth of smoldering greed. The Circle of the Vassel and the Veil: Assignment Number 447: The Collectors.*

### **Episode introduction**

Somewhere in a cavern filled with ancient ruins, a half dozen figures carrying lanterns climb a massive stairway to a broken stone arch holding a raised pedestal, led by Lycus, a man in his late 50's wearing a green suit. Ogden, one of the group, tells him this is one of the untested but viable gates. As he and Dorna Ashefar perform a ritual read from an ancient tome, the oval space within the arch glows and expands, revealing a shadowed realm beyond. Using a second, even older book, they summon forth a tall, thin, spider-like figure from beyond the gate. Lycus holds out an amulet before nodding to his followers to thrust forward a terrified captive. A long tendril-like limb shoots from the shadowy figure and wraps the captive, pulling back to reveal him now faceless and unmoving. Lycus smiles, saying, "Good. There is much work to be done."

### **Part I**

About a week has passed since the events of the previous episode. Edmund Hornsby, the emissary of Alexandra Elise O'Neill, arrives at Reggie's bookshop asking if Auggie's Circle would be interested in new information concerning their last case. When they go to fetch Charlotte Eaves, she is not at home but they are directed to a posh house in the Eaves, where they find her in the library, doing intense research. The home is that of her former mentor Gertrude, and Charlotte describes the incident long ago that brought her into Candela Obscura before they leave to get Arlo Black and Howard Margrove.

Edmund explains that Alexandra is busy on another assignment, but Candela has noticed that in the past week, a number of leaders of the Red Hand have gone suspiciously quiet. Dorna Ashefar, whom the group had reported as possibly slain, had been spotted leaving her now-closed art gallery. However, Kara Belmon, Onette's former assistant, has not returned home but her former bandmate, Theodore, has let them know he received word from her that she has been staying with her uncle Vincent in his orchard at the edge of the Scarlet Woods. Candela would now like the Circle to find Kara and get whatever information from her that they can regarding the Red Hand.

They make their way to The Steam, the Newfaire district holding the train station, and take a train out of town toward the Bridleborne Mountains, surrounded by the Scarlet Woods and illegal stills that extract the sap from the trees to make The Scarlet, an outlawed hallucinogen. Toward sunset, they reach their destination. Once there, Auggie flashes his stolen Periphery badge to question a conductor there about shipping traffic and Arlo gets directions to the Belmon and Schpell Orchard. A passing mother begins railing about the drug traffic and the increasing violence and gunfire in the area.

At dusk, they reach the beautiful but ominous Scarlet Woods and the cabin at the orchard. They are accosted by Vincent and learn Kara is there, and when they tell him they were sent by Kara's friend Theodore to check on her, he lets them pass. The cabin seems deserted and there is no sign of bleed, but they find a locked door. When Auggie picks the lock, they see a burning oil lamp and a woman sitting in a chair facing away. Meanwhile, though, Arlo investigates Vincent's room and accidentally knocks a shotgun off the wall, which discharges, drawing Vincent's attention. He starts running toward the house.

Auggie goes on investigating the other room, where the woman has not moved, and discovers the room fully covered in the magical corruption of bleed. The woman is Kara, faceless and unresponsive. Howard uses his blackjack to whack the approaching and alarmed Vincent, then runs upstairs as well. Kara has a heartbeat. Searching the room, Charlotte finds an envelope holding a blank sheet of paper, which when Arlo uses the bleed detector, reveals a note reading: "Kara, The Pharos is on us. These recent missteps have cost us, and myself, greatly. Your ignorance cannot be left a weakness. Give it six weeks, then find me at the Brinewash Seven. I will appeal for your forgiveness. Dorna." Fourth Pharos is the name of the base of operations for Candela Obscura.

The oil lantern flickers out, they hear an ominous clicking sound, and the door slams shut when they try to leave. A long hand stretches down, covered in shadowy hair-like roots, from a figure standing on the ceiling, illuminated from within by an orange glow. When it descends, they see it stands about 12 feet tall and follows them as they move. Arlo uses Play the Bait to draw it toward her, removing her glove as the others run to the window and Howard jumps out. When Arlo tries to join them, the creature interposes. Auggie also jumps but takes a Body. Charlotte urges Arlo to jump, and she does, while Charlotte holds off the creature with her rune-covered knife, successfully striking with her ghost blade. She takes a Body from initiating this ability, but Arlo is able to snatch up Kara and carry her out the window with her. Arlo also takes a Body.

The creature grabs Charlotte, wrapping around her face, and she takes a Bleed and a Body but is able to use her blade to cut herself free and leap out the window. As they run, they see the creature crawling through the window but Arlo throws a lantern at it. The creature inflicts a Body on Howard before Auggie shoots the lantern and the creature is set aflame, crawling away. The party grabs three oil lanterns, Vincent, Kara, and run through the dark woods toward town. Suddenly, the crickets grow still and they hear the cries of the creature behind them. It catches Charlotte and she takes another Body but throws her lantern and drives it off slightly. Arlo baits it toward her again but takes a Brain from the stress. Howard quickly creates a vial of highly flammable orange liquid and gives it to her to throw at the creature, but she fails and douses Auggie with it instead. Auggie removes his soaked coat and throws it at the creature. Arlo takes a bleed while handing her torch to Howard, and she uses Let It In to see a vision of a dark realm beyond The Flare filled with screaming voices. She realizes the creature's will is not entirely its own. Howard takes a Brain but sets Auggie's coat on fire. Aflame, the creature runs off into the Scarlet Woods allowing the party to reach the train station.

### **Part II**

The party brings the unconscious Vincent to consciousness and he stumbles away, confused and shocked. The party takes the train back to Newfaire and heads to the Gilded Rainbow bookshop, Auggie's home, where they send a message to Edmund and Alexandra. Consulting her tome, Arlo find information on The Snatchers, former humans who have changed beyond The Flare into collectors seeking many different things... including faces. During their discussions, Howard mentions that he would like it if the group can find a way to return Kara's face. They realize that the "Brinewash" is the warehouse district of Newfaire and borrow a gun from Reggie. Charlotte leads them to the docks and her friend Deagan, whom she knows from her "importing" business. Deagan thinks "Brinewash Seven" may refer to one of the 12 warehouses in the area, and gives Howard an axe and Charlotte a handgun.

Around midnight, they make their way to Warehouse 7 in the Brinewash, which is guarded by a sentry on the roof. Howard uses his "Bending Spoons" ability to move the hook holding the fire escape ladder but the noise alerts the guard. Auggie distracts him with a thrown rock, and Howard grabs and subdues him. They stealthily enter the warehouse's second floor, noting three figures below on the first floor, one of which is Dorna. As they attempt to sneak away, Auggie breaks the railing and falls. Both guards raise their guns as they all spin toward the sound. Charlotte steps forward and greets Dorna, whose raised skirt reveals slug-like appendages below her knees, and manages to convince her not to shoot them immediately. Auggie offers Dorna his services, and Dorna asks if they have experience moving people.

Meanwhile, the still-hidden Arlo investigates the area, getting the sense Dorna has been hiding in the warehouse. Howard mixes a vial of combustible liquid and gives it to Arlo, who throws it into a corner where it explodes. To maintain their ruse of friendship, Auggie jumps to protect the frightened Dorna, who begs Charlotte and Auggie to help get her out of the city. She thinks Lycus has gone mad. He's become obsessed with Oldfaire and the mysteries of The Flare. Dorna grabs a map from the table, but as her thugs are opening the door, they hear eldritch groaning. Black roots emerge and swirl into a familiar entity that grabs Dorna by the head, unharmed by gunfire. Charlotte's knife frees her, but not before her face has been removed.

The creature's attention turns to Charlotte, grabbing her by the head and causing bleed as she feels herself being sucked into it. Arlo runs to the switch and turns on all the lights, causing the creature to drop Charlotte. The warehouse is on fire from the thrown incendiary and the guards flee, locking the door behind them. The group manages to get out the way they came as the flames take over.

As they walk, Arlo studies Dorna's map, which appears to be subterranean Oldfaire. It mentions the Van Helter Junkyard in The Steam, and the "Mustang car". At the junkyard, the owner accosts them but is easily bribed to go away, and they find an abandoned railway car with running horses on it. Arlo finds a trail of bleed within it leading to a hidden tunnel downward. They enter single file, following the bleed trail, but Arlo takes bleed damage from being so close to it.

They find themselves in the ruins of Oldfaire. Arlo takes more bleed damage but learns that the creature creating the trail appears to have been sent out, once it arrived. Auggie finds the way to a small camp around a raised dais like the shell of a partially crumpled temple, holding a ten-foot tall oval dark marble archway with a small missing section. Within it is a glowing magical portal leading to a void like that through which Charlotte's family and Arlo's fiancé were once pulled. There are three more faceless bodies lying on the ground around it, unmoving.

Suddenly, a man with glowing golden eyes steps through the portal, speaking of the joys he has seen beyond the Flare, and that "Edward" (Arlo's former fiancé) has not only seen them but is still there. He pulls out an amulet but Charlotte shoots it from his hand before he can use it. The root creature begins apparating from the cracks in the ground as Lycus cries, "Eos ad somnia mitte!"--"Send them to their dreams!". Arlo begins a Forbidden Ritual, taking a scar in the form of her right eye turning completely black and the void in her hand being replaced by an orange eye. She succeeds, however, in shattering the arch around the portal creating a wind that blows back the hairlike roots on the creature and exposes the multiple screaming faces on its torso. Auggie takes two body marks in an unsuccessful attempt to get the amulet before Lycus does. The creature grabs Charlotte and throws her across the room, inflicting another body and knocking her out, but Howard's flung flaming axe sets the creature alight. The creature's retaliatory strike gives Howard one body and one bleed.

Lycus reaches the now-cracked amulet and holds it aloft, though wounded by Auggie's shot, commanding the flaming creature forward once again. Howard takes another bleed defending against the creature while carving Kara's face from among those on the creature's torso. Arlo's Play the Bait pulls the creature from Howard, although he takes another body in the process. Another shot from Auggie shatters the amulet completely and Howard hears the voice and sees the spectral blue face of his dean, whose life he once took, saying, "You fool!" The creature seizes Arlo and the roots begin wrapping around her head, and the scar from her bleed knocks her unconscious as she takes a scar and her face is taken by the creature.

Auggie takes a swing at the approaching creature but misses, taking a body and a bleed, creating a scar, knocking him out and taking his face. Only Howard remains. Desperately, he rushes toward the creature, leaps onto it, and finds Arlo's face. He manages to pull it off, but takes a body and a bleed, knocking him out faceless as well. Arlo, however, regains consciousness, using a ritual to fill the room with the brilliant lights that would have been there two thousand years ago. The creature shrieks in pain. Arlo attempts to shoot the chain holding a flaming sconce just above the creature but fails, both her eyes now full black and taking a brain from the strain. Her second shot succeeds. The chain snaps and flames burst around the creature as the screams of the faces it holds fade one by one. Only the central orange glow remains in the dying creature, revealing the face of Edward, now free but lost in the Void. He reaches for Arlo and smiles as the cinders take him. The faces of Howard and Auggie are restored with the death of the creature.

The party makes their way back to the surface of Newfaire. Arlo, who can now see into other realms, notices a blue glow around Harold, and he promises to introduce her some day. They make their way back to the Sight Unseen, battered physically and psychically, and learn in the next days that not only Kara, but many others have been restored. Candela is grateful, but the life of the city goes on, unaware of their sacrifices.

### **Post-Game**

Auggie is permanently scarred by the exploding obsidian across his face, and one eye is left slightly milky and blinded. Ashley moves a point from Control into Read. Charlotte has trouble concentrating after her head injury, and Anjali moves a point from Focus to Sense. Both Arlo's eyes are now pure black and see into other realms, and Laura moves a point from Control to Survey. Arlo is left with three scars; with one more, she will be either retired (as a Lightkeeper) or dead. Howard is left with horrible headaches, and after concocting and taking a drug of some kind, the hole in his head splits down into his eyebrow, leaving him with a blue scar that sometimes leaks, but seems to gain telekinesis in the process. Robbie moves a point from Survey to Sense, moving "from the logical to the weird."

The Circle of the Vassal and the Veil is at rest, until another investigation calls it. Lycus is still out there somewhere.

## **Featured characters**

### **Circle of the Vassal and the Veil**

* Arlo Black
* Charlotte Eaves
* August "Auggie" James
* Howard Margrove

### **New**

* Deagan - business associate of Charlotte's in the Brinewash
* Edmund Hornsby - Alexandra's emissary
* Lycus - leader of the group which summoned the face-eater
* Maynard Van Helter - owner of the junkyard
* Ogden - an older man who assisted Dorna opening the gate
* Vincent Belmon - Kara Belmon's uncle and owner of an orchard
* Virginia - A passerby upset about the trade in the drug Scarlet

### **Returning**

* Dorna Ashefar - sold Onette the emerald and now has mangled feet
* Reggie - owner of the Gilded Rainbow bookshop

### **Mentioned**

* Alexandra Elise O'Neill
* Edward Easton - Arlo's former fiancé
* Gertrude Danbury - Charlotte's friend and former mentor in Candela
* Kara Belmon - Councilwoman Onette's former assistant
* Reginald - cousin of the lumberyard owner with a side business shipping Scarlet
* Theodore - musician formerly playing with Kara Belmon
* Tory Linz - keeps the books for shipping via train

## **Quotations**

* **Edmund**: Great sacrifices are made by all of us to ensure that what we've experienced befalls few to come. I'm sorry for your loss.
Charlotte: And I am happy for my gain.
* **Arlo**: I've always wanted to see a chicken.
Howard: They're *very* enjoyable. Very easy to kill. You just grab their necks, a little twist, and you have dinner.
Arlo: Oh. Wonderful.
* **Howard**: Howard's no coward. I run directly at the beast empty-handed.

## **References**

**Art:**

1. ↑ Fan art of the root creature, by Ethan M Aldridge (source). Used with permission.
2. ↑ Fan art of Arlo's hand, by JadeQ (source). Used with permission.