Act 1/1.2

## [1.2] hollow oceans, flooded mind

**August 3rd, 2018**

 Hard to believe, you’d been stranded on this island for over a month. With it, you’d gotten accustomed to a new life, a new set of duties and expectations. Or perhaps you hadn’t. Maybe this was all still starkly new, incredibly shocking, impossible to parse. Yet human nature lends itself to weaving together the mental discrepancies with the ascertainable truth.

So what was the truth? You were on a chunk of land that behaved just like any other you knew.

### Sustain

Sustain and Lemon throw a harvest dinner due to their labors paying off! It’s a feast!

* A fire starts, and the group tries to evacuate but a salamander aberrant crashes into them, panicked. The aberrant eventually possesses Jules, who goes into a state of paranoia/fear.
* Jules tries to kill Lucian, and the rest of the group is divided between attempting to kill Jules and trying to keep him alive.
* Jules is distracted long enough for Lemon to light up his pipe and cause a calming hallucination that knocks Jules out for the night.

### Protect

Felise and Protect hold a training tournament where they spar against each other.

* The tournament is underway until a flock of the crying bird aberrants crash their party.
* The birds fling tears at all of them, and the team tries to dispatch them. In the scuffle, Svend gets bitten on the neck by the last dying bird and is overcome with anguish.
* In his state of despair, he attacks the group. The group attacks Svend and eventually Hector and Marin knock Svend out.

### Repair

Repair goes off with Toy and Brie into a cavern to look for magic crystals that can be used to power the ship.

* In the cavern, they find a bunch of treasure chests and crystals that are too old to power the ship. Brie and Toy leave the crew to their own looting devices, and suddenly a glowing eel aberrant attacks the party. The eel electrocutes Pippa on the leg and she kills it in payback.
* As it dies, the eel lungs and possesses her, causing Pippa to be overcome with ecstasy/mania. She electrocutes Percy's arm, and Sofia shoots her in the shoulder with an arrow as Phoenix tries to calm her down. Due to the combination of pain/pleading, Pippa snaps out of her alter state.
* The group talks to her until she passes out from exhaustion, and Toy and Brie return. Neither has much clue about the possession the group describes, and they decide to wrap up for the day.

### Summary

On an excursion for ‘batteries’, magic artifacts that can be siphoned off by the ship for power, Brie and Toy find a fountain with large orbs. The aetherians were on the island looking for a dragon’s bounty and this was it. Brie drops an orb and cracks it, releasing its energy.

When the orb’s raw energy is released, a bunch of aberrants around the island suddenly attack places where humans have gathered. They were dispatched, but as three of the aberrants die, they latch onto nearby humans.

**Jules**, **Svend**, and **Pippa** each absorb an aberrant and go berserk in the process, consumed by the aberrant’s emotion while channeling their magic.

They are knocked out and come to with slight physical changes. The physical changes grow when they are brought closer to the emotion of the aberrant they absorbed. The humans decide to call individuals afflicted by this **Alters**.

## [Side Plot] a way off the island…

Brie has declared he's found a way off the island but is very secretive about it. He summons all who are interested at a designated meeting place before heading out. After picking their way through the dense forest, they come upon a sandy clearing—the edge of the island. It looks like a beach, but instead of water, it's an open sky. Beyond the treeline, the wind is gusting powerfully enough for it to make walking difficult. Brie reveals that his idea is to climb down from the chain attached to the island.

Mute, Ulex, and Indigo opt to try climbing. Phoenix, Jace, Daniel, Svend, and Percy do not. Two large, **dog-like aberrants** with no face approach the group still on land, attacking. Daniel and Percy kill one, and a third aberrant appears.

Mute loses his balance and falls off the side of the island; Ulex and Indigo try to save him, But Ulex falls off as well.