46: The Hunter

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## Summary

### What's in the Box?

Cat and Mujie, still in the church with Brother Phobos, attempt to surreptitiously investigate a locked chest. Though they can’t look too closely with company lingering, Cat’s Detect Magic reveals the presence of both Wrath and Ark. Brother Phobos tells them they are free to roam the village until evening mass, which they are encouraged to attend.

### The Cabin

Meanwhile, out in the woods to the west of the Village, Mahi distracts the hunting dogs so Tira and Bran can take a closer look at the Hunter’s cabin. Though they don’t find much of note inside, the trio descends into a hatch leading to a tunnel that takes them under the village. The path is monotonous and dim, and after some aimless wandering, they are arrested by the presence of Wrath somewhere deeper in the underground. They turn back, retracing their steps, and run into the Hunter they encountered earlier. Aided by the darkness of the tunnel, they get the jump on him and capture him.

### Surprise Reunion

Back on the surface, Luca thanks his lucky stars he’s narrowly escaped detection before turning back into a crow. despite the chaos, he manages to communicate well enough with Tai that she follows him to the cemetery at the northern border of the village. There, Cat and Mujie sneakily fill Tai in on what they’re doing here while pressing her for answers. She reveals that she’s been sent to infiltrate the cult and report back to Lillet and Ander about the source of the Wrath plaguing the village. After an emotional back-and-forth, though, she admits that she’s really here to take down the cult that cut her sister’s life short—whatever it takes. Mujie and Cat try to dissuade her, but she makes no promises, instead asking them to kill Brother Phobos and the mysterious Mother. Before too long, Tai must report back to the Elders’ Lodge to prepare for evening mass, after which she will complete the cult’s induction ritual, called the Exchange.

### Prey

Back at the cabin, Bran, Tira, and Mahi are playing good cop bad cop uncomfortable cop with Rhodos, the hunter they captured in the tunnels. Severely outmatched, he gives up quite a bit of information.

Rhodos and the rest of the older villagers came from a land called Chrysos, outside the realm of Balaayt and across a great and treacherous ocean to the north. Supposedly, they were driven out and persecuted for their faith. They settled here, in a remote valley in the furthest stretches of the Wilds, about 30 years ago, and built the village Primor.

To no one’s surprise, Brother Phobos is not only the village head, but quite high up on the ladder of the cult’s hierarchy. But there’s someone above him—Mother herself, whom Rhodos has known for quite some time. Though the inner workings of the Illumined remain a mystery even to Rhodos, he does know that the appearance of a certain someone has triggered the cult’s endgame, an event called True Night in which believers will be delivered to paradise. He also suspects that the God of Light itself remains dormant beneath the village. Critical to its plan are the God of Light’s two angels, one of whom is thought to be the man with silvery hair, whom Brother Phobos has raised in isolation beneath the village his entire life. The trio also learns that the Exchange that Tai is expected to complete that night would see her drinking the blood of Tristus. What this accomplishes, however, Rhodos does not know.

Further complicating matters is that Rhodos is meant to take the tunnels to return to the Elders’ Lodge some time that evening to release a group of the ghouls the party encountered earlier—creatures they now know to be the result of failed inductions into the cult. Rhodos tells them that Brother Phobos instructs believers to drink a thick, blackish substance called the Ichor of God—probably Wrath, Tira surmises—to prove their loyalty. But if it doesn’t take, they are instead transformed into the wretched monsters the party ran into earlier. His role as a hunter demands that he release the monsters into the woods to keep the villagers afraid of leaving, and cull the monsters when they grow too numerous.

The trio relays what they’ve learned to Mujie, Cat, and Luca, who have settled in for a brief rest at Phobos’s house, and prepare to reenter the tunnels to unearth what lies beneath the village.

## Quotes

> “...Headmaster Broadleaf sent me. He says there’s one of those things we saw in K’nafay here. I’m supposed to keep tabs and report back soon.” “Those fragments, or whatever. They’re rare, and powerful… They’re dangerous, too. They can infect people, twist their minds and their souls. He’s trying to get rid of them.”
>
>

*—Tai, on her role infiltrating the cult*