Welcome back to the Dragon's Den Actual Play Blog! For the next few weeks I will be playing the newest case in the Sworn by Ghostlight game by Matthew John! Long-time followers of the blog will remember the first case, the Ebonwood Effigies. My play through of 'The Wings of Rot' picks up a few years after the dramatic close of the first case, from the perspective of Assistant Detective of Occult and Ghostlight Mysteries, Selma Belright. What darkness will Selma discover in the Rift?
For this entry in my SbG series, I'll be using Starforged moves, Ironsworn Oracles, Ironsmith Expanded Oracles as well as the built in Oracles from the Wings of Rot tri-fold.
Begin a Session: 13, flashback reveals an aspect of another character
Alene Velez watched from the shadows as her cousin scrambled up the rusted rungs of a rickety escape ladder. The older girl had a large rucksack on her back, and a dark hood pulled over her head, but Alene had followed her from the small ramshackle house the girls' families shared with their grandparents. There was no mistaking the silhouette climbing the ladder. It was Selma, and she was leaving.
Alene moved silently, ducking in and out of shadows as she pursued her cousin. The girl had always been nimble and athletic, and managed to climb up the exposed beams of the old scaffolding with ease. Selma reached the top only minutes before Alene managed as well.
The older girl was waiting for her when she dragged herself up onto the grated walkway. Selma's face was streaked with red, and her usual smile was down turned.
"You could have called out to me Lenny," Selma said, offering her cousin a hand.
"Where's the fun in that?" Lenny replied.
"Why are you following me?"
"Why are you leaving?" An unspoken "me" hung in the stifling air between them. Lenny refused to admit she was hurt, even if the feelings were boiling in her chest and threatening to spew out.
"I want more than this, Len. You know that."
"Just because you managed to get a scholarship to a topside school doesn't mean you can leave!"
"When you're older, you'll understand."
"I'll never understand, Sellie. How can you leave your family?"
Selma's eyes flowed with tears, but she didn't answer. Instead, she reached out and squeezed Lenny's arm before she turned and ran down the walkway towards the cracked concrete steps that led up to the bridge and road above.
Tears erupted from Alene’s eyes like a burst dam, but burned like molten rock as they ran down her cheeks. She was angry at her cousin. She felt betrayed.
"I hope you never come back! Traitor!" she yelled after Selma.
The older girl stopped, but didn't turn back. After a moment, Selma vanished into the shadows. Lenny would not see her again for many years..
Selma Belright, Occult Detective
Personal Case Journal
14 July, 1937 GLR
Monaþstone Upper Eastside
Long nights. That's all I seem to get these days. Long nights, and very little sleep. On the night of 14 July, I was awake long past midnight combing through the official report on a case I closed just that morning. The Chief expected the report on her desk by morning on the 15th and, being the perfectionist that I am, I was nitpicking every comma and em-dash.
The Ghosphorescent lantern--a relatively new device, if simple in design--cast a pale violet glow across my dining table. The steady hum and click of its internal combustion was in perfect rhythm with the old grandfather clock I salvaged from an estate sale a year ago. I must have fallen asleep, because I went from reading about the electrocuted victims of my latest murder case to startling awake at the sound of a familiar voice calling my name.
In the flame of the Ghosphorescent lamp, a face writhed and twisted with each hum and click of the device.
"Selma!" the voice called, "Selma!"
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and looked back at the flickering lantern. The face, now familiar to me, continued to waver.
"There is not much time! Listen to me. I've seen them. The Lost. They are alive. For now. Find them. Find me. The Rift. Seek Reunion. Seek...Wings of Rot..."
The voice, and face, of my mother, faded to nothing.
I do not know how long I sat staring into the wavering flame of the lantern, trying to make sense of what I'd just witnessed. My mother had died only a few months before, and I had not been there. I didn’t even find out about her passing until well after the funeral. I worked hard to block the pain and regret from my mind, but sometimes…sometimes it was just not possible.
A knock on the door startled me..
As I approached the door, a piece of paper slid beneath. It fluttered along the wooden flooring and lighted on my bare foot. I stooped to grab it, and threw open the door. There was no one outside, but I felt as though someone was watching me intently. I padded out into the hallway, but heard nothing so I went back inside and with the paper, and threw the lock on the door—just in case.
The paper was tattered, crumpled, and faded. An inked scrawl covered one side of the sheet, and I struggled to make out the cramped handwriting. Eventually I managed to decipher it. The letter read:
Moonshard Market.
Come alone.
It was signed "Lenny."
Ask the Oracle
Set A Course
The streets of Monaþstone, unlike other large municipal centers across the Continent, were not well lit in the late hours of the day. The Ghosphoresence street lamps only possessed enough fuel to run from sundown to midnight and were only refueled in the mornings by the city's street crews. I walked along the cobbles to the dim glow of my standard issue Ghostphorescent torch, the same one that Detective Tiberius Remus used to carry. It was one of my few keepsakes to remind me of my mentor and friend who disappeared over two years ago.
Remus' final message came only a few months ago, but I was no closer to uncovering how to bring him back to the present, or if it was even possible. I'd only shared the note with Chief Dashell, and she ordered me to keep it quiet and investigate the situation off the record. With the rapid decay and eventual demolition of Tubblebottom's Apothecary, I had very little in the way of hypotheses, and no hard evidence at all. Even the Echoes of the magical event had all but faded from the area.
Lost in my reflections, I didn't notice the scuffle taking place down a side street until I was nearly past. A voice cried out, pulling me from my thoughts, and activating a sense of urgency. I turned my torch down the street, illuminating a large figure dressed in black. The person's face was covered by a hood and scarf.
"Monaþstone Bureau of Investigation, put your hands up," I ordered.
The hooded figure laughed, and shoved a thin, pale form into the wall. The victim thudded against the bricks and crumpled, completely lifeless. The dark form began to approach, stalking forward with a confidence that sent a shiver through my body.
"Stop right there."
"I don't think so, Ghosthunter," a harsh, masculine voice replied. "You showed up at a really bad time."
From somewhere inside their large overcoat, the figure drew a long piece of wood, tapered to a sharp point on one end.
My mind began to race, scrambling to find a way out of this situation. Instead of decisions, my brain merely spun through various visions of my brutal murder.
Suddenly, the crumpled victim began to move. At first its limbs cracked and angled in a grotesque approximation of a four legged spider. It skittered forward, twisting its frail form until it was somehow standing on its two legs.
Set a Course Result
Face Danger
The big man heard the movement at the same time that he began to process my widening eyes. He turned, impossibly fast, and launched the stake like a spear toward the rapidly approaching figure. It leaped over the projectile and spun through the air, landing hard on my chest and driving me to the ground.
Its face was sickly white, with black veins spidering beneath the paper thin flesh. Its black lips parted to reveal a mouth full of inch long fangs. The smell of decay and blood overwhelmed me, and I fought back a retching scream. Sharp nails dug into my shoulders as the creature began to lean down toward my neck.
Just as suddenly as it attacked, it shoved me back into the cobbles and leapt off of me with a hiss. The large man in black charged toward me, the stake now in his gloved hand.
Face Danger Result
Resource Update
Endure Harm
Resource Update
"Damnit Ghosthunter!" the man cursed. "You let him get away!"
"What the hell was that thing?" I asked, shaking on the ground.
"Don't tell me, you've never heard of the Vrykolaka, Ghosthunter."
"The Vrykolakai are a myth."
"Did you imagine that one then?"
The big man extended a hand, and I took it tentatively. He pulled me to my feet like I weighed nothing.
"Take off your coat," he ordered.
New, and different, panicked thoughts flooded my mind. The uncertainty and fear must have shown on my face, because the man took off his hood and pulled down the scarf, offering me a tight lipped smile.
"I'm not going to hurt you, but I need to look at the claw wounds on your shoulders."
"Who are you?" I asked, while shrugging out of my coat.
"You can call me Hunter."
"Alright, Hunter. What were you doing in a dark alley with that...thing?"
"What do you think, Ghosthunter? I was trying to kill it, before it had a chance to feed."
"Who do you work for?" I'd heard rumors of these vigilantes who believed they were hunting and destroying monsters. But I'd never met one before.
"I work for no one, and serve the people. We are not so different, you and I."
"Except what I do is legal. And I don't threaten strangers in the dark."
"I was only trying to scare you off. I was not going to harm you."
"I wish I could believe that."
My breath caught in my throat as he pressed his gloved fingers against the deep lacerations from the Vrykolakas' claws. The pain was sharp and sudden, but I could tell the wounds weren't deep.
"Good news is, I don't think the monster had time to inject his toxin. Your wounds aren't reddening, and they," he leaned in and sniffed my shoulder, "don't smell of it either."
"What toxins?"
"Vrykalakai possess a potent neurotoxin that renders their prey completely inert. You cannot fight, or even cry out, once they have injected enough of the stuff into the bloodstream. It is a common myth that they do so by biting, but this isn't accurate. Most Vrykalakai victims are scratched or gouged first. The biting--eating really--happens later. The victim is still alive, of course."
Hunter delivered this information like a university lecturer. I admired the oratorical skill such a delivery required, and envied those who possessed it. But now, hearing what he had to say, and witnessing what I had, I only wanted to get away from the alley.
"Thank you, Hunter," I said, slowly backing away from the imposing man. "I'll just be going."
"Home, I hope," the big man replied, pulling his scarf over his nose and donning the dark hood.
I turned and jogged quickly back into the open space of the high street and resumed my journey, now jittery from the events of the night, to the Rift.
The remainder of my trek was uneventful and I arrived at Corring's Bridge, the steel expanse connecting the twin hills of Monaþstone and concealing the smoking ruins of the Rift from the eyes of the populace, a half hour later. Despite seeing no one else, I could not shake the feeling of being watched.
The path to the Rift's entrance was covered in overgrown bushes, vines, and littered with trash. No one came here by choice, and very few of the denizens of the Rift ever came to the surface. I found the rusty iron ladder, remnants of a much older bridge, right where I expected and began my descent.
Memories of a time so many years in the past rushed into my mind as I cautiously descended the ladder into the hazy shadows of the Overhang. I was still trembling from the experience in the alley, and my panic only increased as I recounted the last time I saw Lenny, of her anger and hurt. I wondered what could have possibly made her ask me to come back, after all these years. Reconnecting with my cousin, who I loved dearly, was almost as daunting as the knowledge that Vrykalakai prowled the streets of Monaþstone.
What new dangers and mysteries will Selma discover in the Rift? Check back next Tuesday for Case Log 2!
Comments