Session 13 - 2026-05-24T00:00:00.000-04:00

Player Characters

Recap

The crew finalized their decision after speaking a bit more. They would sign the papers and become mercenaries for the Usonian military for now. With that established Naomi spoke with them concerning next actions. They had three leads: The King of the Jungle club, the abandoned village in Prosperity Valley, and the Abandoned Village Purrcival used to live in.

The latter was likely to still be on high alert, especially given the attack on the docks facility. The former was a big unknown and could be a huge risk. The middle seemed like the best option for the time being. Naomi allowed them to determine their approach, with a core objective of getting more information that would hopefully lead them to fully understanding the BH threat. Also, they should do their best to capture anyone there alive, but if they had to defend themselves and that meant killing someone it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Though civilian collateral was unacceptable.

The crew decided it was best to arrive at the village in the early morning, giving them the maximum amount of daylight to investigate and so left with the truck later that night. Jimmie and Barnabas stayed behind to keep the Sips running, while Gus and Purrcival set to thinking about how best to approach the village in another few days.

Once they reached the village they immediately headed for what was an obviously safe place, the Church. Inside was dusty, disheveled and clearly ransacked, with the only recent signs being those from a card game the truckers must have been playing weeks ago. Investigation of the main floor found nothing of significant interest, but did reveal that it had been a church of Mercury, which fit with the waystation vibe of the village.

The crew descended into the basement to continue their investigation, and there they found a gathering area in a similar state to the above, but it included a couple of noteworthy features. Firstly, what looked like a small, makeshift camp site, including a bedroll, bag, and fireplace. Secondly, was a large hole in the wall at the far end of the room next to a door that was closed.

Velvet set to using her gift of psychometry to look at what the last piece of violence which had happened here. She saw a man in simple robes ambush the camper from the hole in the wall and kill him using magic after saying he shouldn’t have followed him. She conveyed what she could to the others under the guise of observations and deduction.

Rhys decided to check the bag and found a few simple items for survival that were clearly quite old, but also found a journal which was missing the last several entries. A letter also fell out of the journal. The journal seemed to belong to a Father Eustace, who had been pursuing a Brother Virgil and trying to stop him from doing something rash related to his experiments. The letter was from Brother Virgil, begging his friend to understand and to not follow him.

The crew almost returned to the surface to continue their investigation, but then remembered Velvet had mentioned the victim being dragged away and they realized he had been dragged through the hole. There they investigated a storage room further and found some scrape marks hidden under the detritus and debris. The secret door was no contest for Velvet to simply pry open, but she did so with such force that she tumbled down the stonework steps revealed behind it. The crew gathered on the steps and found a metal door at the base of the stairs. It was locked, and after Rhys attempted to pick it, accidentally making too much noise and hearing something on the other side. Pete decided to knock and announce themselves. More noise was heard, and a voice requested identification. Pete was unable to convince it that they should be granted access, and eventually Velvet decided to simply rip the door open.

When she did, a magictech security system struck. It was guarding a lab where undead and a strange colony of worms were being kept and experimented on. Some in the group recognized the worms as a creature known as Puppet Worms, which inhabit corpses and move them around for seemingly feeding and breeding purposes.

The crew set to disabling the security system with violent attacks. In the chaos many of the mechanisms containing the undead were broken and freed many of them. As the fight raged and broke parts of the lab eventually someone appeared behind the group on the stairs, the dwarf in simple robes from Velvet's vision, including an arm infected with the worms. He demanded they stop and unleashed a magical attack, but was nearly killed by a raging Velvet who cut his infected arm off in a single powerful swipe of her claws.

Brother Virgil would then surrender and deactivate the security system, realizing he was outmatched. And the crew began interrogating him and investigating. Unfortunately, it was clear he was unstable and any time they mentioned Father Eustace or Virgil’s involvement in his death he would snap and strike whoever said it.

Throughout the interrogation and poking around the lab they would learn that he had been experimenting on the Puppet Worms, trying to find a long term cure or a way to stop them, though it seemed like his efforts had also dipped into learning anything and everything he could about them, including intentionally infecting his own arm in an effort to learn more about their habits and needs. It seemed, based on a letter they found, that after his family had been killed and their bodies taken by Puppet Worms, he’d begun to experiment and study, drawing the ire of the church, which led to him going into hiding and having to rely on BH for bodies to continue his experiments. In exchange he was giving BH info on his findings. It seemed like he genuinely wanted to find a cure, but had fallen in with BH out of necessity.

Pete also spoke with one of the corpses, asking a series of questions about who they were and what they knew. While for the most part not much was gained, they did learn that the man had died working for a land developer while trying to plant something on wildfolk land in the Dust Woods.

They planned to arrest Virgil and deliver him to a military tribunal, but there was still the matter of the ghost-like beings that were showing up outside. The crew decided to discuss and investigate on the surface, heading for the graveyard where Virgil had been burying the bodies once his experiments with them were done. They decided to dig up a grave (though avoided digging up Eustace's) and when they did they discovered a ghostly looking Puppet Worm wrapped through the body which was mostly bone and sinew at this point. Pete used a blessing he remembered to purge the ghostly form and when it worked they decided to do the same at mass scale. Thankfully it seemed to work and the mist that had been gathering indicating ghostly attackers dissipated.

Their job done, info gathered, and a new prisoner in tow the group was about to leave when through this process Virgil became quite excited, realizing that these must be some kind of psychic projections of the hive mind that he understood Puppet Worm colonies to have. He just needed to run a single experiment to confirm it. Doing so would open more doors towards dealing with them and preventing issues. Eventually the crew gave in to his imploring, however the colony of Worms had already escaped through the damage they’d caused to their enclosure to access the bodies in the freezer during the fight.

The crew swiftly found the nearest pay phone and called Naomi to let her know the area might have a problem. They then made their way back into Moonfall City.

Was there anything else Virgil could tell them? Was it time to tackle the village or perhaps the King of the Jungle Club, or was there some way they could chase down answers about the goon who was planting things in wildfolk territory. They seem close, but frustratingly short to figuring out just who or what BH is. Most of the pieces are here, but there’s just one or two missing. Would they be able to find them and finally see the whole picture?