Farport Epilogue
A sickness is spreading
General Summary
“He's in a bad way.”
The party returned from Chastain Manor with the spoils of their recent discovery in the Chastain bunker (charts, journals, weapons, armour, and technical equipment). They came to find Jaun Silva, ship's carpenter, serving double duty as ship's physician, ministering to the wounds of the village survivor the party had rescued from exposure earlier in the day. Having fallen under a flurry of toxic darts at the manorhouse, Edmund remained in serious and worsening condition, and Captain Zachary Thorpe directed Silva to get his medicine bag and treat Edmund's sickness as well. The party had noted that the symptoms of inflammation evident in Edmund's case were beginning to be revealed in Jayne and Matthaeus's wounds as well, and the reactive effects noted in the Chastain Map markings whenever any of the three came close to the parchment seemed to indicate that the mystery illness had something to do with the trio's shared exposure to the caustic blood of Pacui. [The markings glowed the same sickly yellow colour as Pacui's blood, and these three had all suffered direct and prolonged exposure to that blood. Moreover, the glow of the markings intensified whenever the parchment was brought near to any of the three exposed members].
“You know what? Just bring me the port.”
Smelling of strong drink, the captain shared some brief words with the returned crew before staggering down into the mess hall to be alone with his bottle. Matthaeus followed after him and began asking about preparations for the evening mess. Thorpe dismissed him impatiently but then called him back to send him for some more wine from the ship's hold.
Matthaeus bumped into Tad Tillerson on the stairs. The bulky cook exchanged an awkward greeting with the ship's introverted bosun, who spoke only in muted mutterings and avoided direct eye contact. Proceeding to gather provisions for the mess, Matthaeus noticed once again that some of the ship's stores had gone missing. This time he noted the disappearance of a significant portion of salted pork, a consumable stored for long trips and valued for its notable resistance to spoilage. Matthaeus tried looking for anything else out of the ordinary but it took him awhile just to find the requested bottle of wine.
“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.”
Zen, the local Zoner who had joined the party earlier in the day spent some time with Silva and was engaging in a conversation with the crew about the nature of the Vril invasion of the Forbidden Zone when Marsala the Houngan emerged from the jungle and returned to the ship. Being evasive about his whereabouts, Marsala was directly questioned about where he had been for the latter part of the day. He gave the vague impression he had somehow gone "to another place" but offered no further explanation.
After loaning some magical healing to assist the recovery of the Farport survivor, Marsala diagnosed the mysterious disease afflicting Edmund, Matthaeus, and Jayne as the "Soul Sickness" spoken of in the Laradan Chronicles of Black Sun.
Having spent time with the Laradan Word Keepers, Marsala knew something of the lore of the Black Calendar and he recalled that an ancient ameliorative remedy for "Soul Sickness" was derived from certain varieties of kelp and seaweed. After conferring with Marsala, the explorers in the party (Jayne, William, and Everest) identified the relevant species of flora in the Klinnsman Field Guide and set out to retrieve the necessary specimens.
After the party trackers returned with a respectable supply of the needed plants, Marsala took the freshly harvested ingredients and prepared a salty concoction to use as a digestible tonic and salve. Silva applied the treatment and Edmund's life-threatening fever broke mid-way through the evening. While working with Silva, Marsala noticed a conspicuous star tattoo under his forearm. The symbol, a solid five-pointed star, looked familiar, but Marsala couldn't place where he had seen it.
“Dio Mio! You guythz thpeak Englith? Where you from?”
At this point the Farport survivor regained consciousness and identified himself as Gooze Proudflesh, a merchant horse trader and operator of the Farport stables. Pleased at the party's efforts to save his horses, he expressed his gratitude by immediately pledging to give Zen and Jayne each a horse for their troubles. After exchanging introductions with the whole crew, Gooze was happy to answer questions about the Vril attack.
The invaders came out of Vrelland starting three months earlier. They first crossed over Black Wash and White Sands to occupy the holy sites of the White Sand Mountains, the mountain desert of the "big fire," or the "TNT" (TriNiTy) as Gooze put it. The emergence of the Badland Vril into the Zone coincided with the disappearance of villagers from Farport Outpost and the surrounding homesteads. People were simply disappearing into the jungle never to be seen again. After two months of these strange disappearances, the Vril took possession of the town of Trinity itself and rumours started circulating from Trinity refugees that missing Farporters were spotted in Trinity. These rumours were hard to confirm though, because the Badland Vril forbid any travel on the Trinity Trail, the jungle road north to the White Sand Mountains that had been used by pilgrims to access the sacred shrines of Trinity, including the famous Trinity "pump station," an ancient marvel of Visitor engineering that had been installed hundreds of years earlier to purify the region and purge the toxicity of the Age of Poisoned Sea and Blackened Sky.
Not long afterwards, the Vril began sending war parties south towards Farport and into the jungles of Pachuco. Two weeks ago Farport itself was captured and the entire village either put to the sword, taken north in bondage, or locked in wheel cages and suspended in the air on poles. Gooze himself had been placed in an iron wheel cage and left to die of exposure before the party had saved him. Apparently this had been done not simply as a cruel instrument of execution. Gooze explained that the Vril leader, Pacui, had conducted some kind of ritual within the Vanguard Church hall and that the iron wheels had been raised as part of the mysterious rite, which had involved the Badlanders marching around the village and shouting vile chants while marking the trees at the perimeter with their clan insignia. [The party had noticed these markings earlier and identified them as the "fire glyph" referred to in the Chastain family's expedition notes. This glyph was also identified as the symbol which had appeared on the Chastain Zone map after exposure to Pacui's poisonous blood].
According to Gooze, the pump station was known as a place of healing where sick people would often go in search of miracles.
“There's a road? That changes things.”
Conferring as a group with Gooze's knowledge in consideration, the party decided to travel north to Trinity to save the captured villagers and seek out a cure for the sickness now afflicting their party members. Thorpe would remain in Farport with the SS Hawke and keep watch lest the Arcadia turn up. The journey would begin with the new day. In the meantime, the party took rest, though they found the strange dreams which had disturbed their nights during the sea voyage continued to plague their nights. These dreams seemed to have become perhaps even more intensely disturbing than before.
Jayne awoke the next day to find his companion, Adelle, digging into his gear and reading from Oliver Chastain's book of ritual magic. She was embarrassed to have been caught meddling in Jayne's things and pleaded for forgiveness. She explained that her curiosity had been overcome by the allure of arcane knowledge, something her grandfather Manfred Klinnsman had always rejected as the trifle of irrational superstition. Here in the Zone the expedition seemed overwhelmed by arcane mystery and the anxiety of the unknown had prompted her to read the forbidden text in search of answers. Jayne, feeling cross, took the book back and instructed her not to go through his things again.
“They don't look ok...”
The party decided it would be wise to bring their sick members to Trinity by horse drawn cart and went into the village to retrieve their horses and get a wagon set up. Returning to the village and entering the abandoned market square, however, the party saw three human figures shambling aimlessly through the streets and stalls. Gooze stepped forward to get a better look and said one of the figures was Jane Godin, his neighbor and one of the first villagers to go missing weeks earlier. Then he recognized another face, that of Soren, the village blacksmith. The three villagers said nothing. They simply shuffled about from place to place. Then, as Jane approached the village well her eyes raised to observe the party for the first time and her head cocked sideways in a moment of contemplation.
Rewards Granted
The party verified the recipe for Soul Sickness anti-toxin and produced doses of the treatment (14 remain).
Character(s) interacted with
Adelle Mirodar (Jayne’s companion)
Captain Zachary Thorpe
Lilith Johnson (first mate)
Freeman Skinner (Quartermaster)
Thaddeus “Tad” Tillerson (Bosun)
Jaun Silva (Master Carpenter)
Gooze Proudflesh
Captain Zachary Thorpe
Lilith Johnson (first mate)
Freeman Skinner (Quartermaster)
Thaddeus “Tad” Tillerson (Bosun)
Jaun Silva (Master Carpenter)
Gooze Proudflesh
The Forbidden City of the Phoenix: Chapter IV - Epilogue
January 31st to February 1st 1000 PCE
Player Characters:
William BenjaminEdmond Andrew
Zen
Matthaeus “Math” Mannheim
Everest Bell
Marsala
Jayne
Rob
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