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. In addition to the usual resources, the final two posts of this SbG series will primarily make use Ironsworn: Delve.
Begin a Session
The Herald watched from an arrow slit midways up the courtyard tower. They did not expect the Vrykolakai to lose at all, much less so quickly. They had clearly underestimated the one called Hunter. He was a formidable fighter, and the Belright’s hand-cannon was more devastating than anything they had ever experienced before. Such small blasting weapons had not existed when they were last on the surface.
These three would serve the great Dimuth before the end, they would see to it.
Progress Update
Resource Update
Selma Belright, Occult Detective
Personal Case Journal
18 July, 1315
The Rift - Fortress of the Aspect
We took several minutes to look around the courtyard, trying to find a way out of the fortress. The black walls towered above us. Figures in white roamed the battlements, but they made no attempt to attack us. Most of the sentries didn’t even look in our direction, their gazes turned outward as if they expected something or someone to materialize out of the gloom.
“I don’t see a door on the keep,” Lenny said, scrutinizing the black stone wall of the large building in the center of the compound.
“No, but there’s a small door in that tower,” Hunter said, pointing at a tower adjacent to the keep.
“Looks like we start there. Be wary, there’s no way it's not a trap,” I said, and led the group across the courtyard and through the iron bar door in the tower.
Discover a Site
Ask the Oracle
Delve the Depths
Inside, the tower was pitch dark and I was thankful, not for the first time, for the headlamps Lenny had thought to pick up before we left the community building. The white glow of my lamp illuminated the inside of a narrow stone staircase. The stairwell was barely wide enough for one person, and we moved in single file through the tight space. We heard no sound, save the echoing thump of our feet on the stone steps.
Delve the Depths Results
Delve Progress Update
Ask the Oracle - Waypoint
Delve the Depths
After what seemed an eternity climbing in the oppressively small space, we stepped out onto a wide stone causeway that led us to a hexagonal courtyard containing a single pool carved from raw stone. Inside the pool was a strange liquid, the color of milk. The unusual water seemed to writhe in the basin, transforming at random into faces with open, screaming mouths and wide eyes. The faces would fade, and the placid, opaque surface returned only to be replaced a moment later with a new face in a new part of the pool.
“What is this?” Lenny asked.
“Spirit pool,” Hunter muttered. “I’ve read about them, but I didn’t think they actually existed.”
Lenny reached out her hand toward the liquid, but Hunter grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly away from the pool.
“What the hell man!?” Lenny snapped.
“I just saved your life.”
“You mean you just bruised my arm.”
“That’s a Spirit Pool. If you touch it, it will draw your spirit from your body.”
“Oh,” Lenny replied, chagrined.
“What exactly is a Spirit Pool? And what is it used for? Besides stealing souls,” I asked Hunter.
“According to my research, the Spirit Pool was developed millennia ago by dark mages to draw forth and trap the spirits of the recently departed. I always thought the tales were just that, but this—this is real.”
“Is there any indication that we can communicate with the spirits?”
“Not that I recall. Being trapped in a Spirit Pool was meant to be a permanent separation of the spirit from the world of the living.”
“What did these dark mages use the spirits for?”
“The records aren’t clear. Most of that information was banned and burned a long time ago. What little bit I found was from third-hand accounts, or even further removed.”
“Could this new kind of Vrykolaka be made using this thing?”
“It is certainly possible, though I don’t have evidence to support it.”
“It makes sense,” Lenny piped in, still rubbing her forearm. “Those creatures we fought in the courtyard, they weren’t like the one that attacked us earlier. That thing was animalistic, feral. Starving, maybe? But these were different, intelligent, cunning.”
“I agree,” Hunter replied. “I’d bet this is the source of the new Vryks, and may very well be where the Lost are being imprisoned.”
“Can we destroy it? Set the spirits free?” I asked.
Delve the Depths Results
Delve Progress Update
Ask the Oracle - Waypoint
The tell-tale glow of Ghostlight emanated from the sides of the pool in thick tendrils. It surprised me that I hadn’t noticed them before, but then I had been distracted by the faces in the water. A sense of certainty flooded me as I watched the wisps of Ghostlight rise up from the basin and materialize before me in a gauzy shape. The shape did not speak, nor was I able to clearly see who the shape was meant to be. The longer it wavered in my view, however, the more defined it became. After only another moment, the figure solidified into a smoky humanoid shape with the strong features of my mother. She did not speak, but her head bobbed up and down in what I felt could only be an affirmative answer to my question.
“Did you see that?” I asked, even as the Ghostlight faded to nothing.
“No?” Lenny replied, a look of confusion and concern on her face.
Hunter did not respond, but something told me he too had seen what I had.
“I think we can destroy it, and that will set the spirits it has trapped free.”
Secure an Advantage
I crouched and examined the masonry of the pool. It was simple stone and mortar, of the sort not used on the surface in centuries. It would not be hard to shatter the chalky stones with a piece of metal or a tool of some kind.
“Hunter, do you have anything that we might use to break through the side of the pool?”
Hunter didn’t answer, but pulled a metal rod from beneath his trench coat and held it out to me.
“This should do it.”
Face Danger
Ask the Oracle
I raised the rod over my head and brought it down with all of my strength. The chalk cracked, and sent slivers of stone skittering over the ground. I hit it again, and again, until the metal rod crunched through the top two layers of stone and mortar. One final hit opened up a four-inch rent in the side of the basin, allowing the viscous milky liquid to leak out. I danced back, careful not to let the spirit water touch me.
The Ghostlight flared once again, this time from the widening puddle. Shapes like humans climbed out of the liquid, as if leaving a swimming pool, and stepped out of the water. With each new figure, the fluid became clearer and clearer until, after nearly fifty figures, the liquid was clear as spring water.
All around us, filling the courtyard, were the gauzy shades of fifty or more spirits. One stepped forward, materializing into the form of my mother. She did not speak, but her smile—that easy, wide grin that I missed so much—spread across her face. Her milky eyes sparkled with a happiness that couldn’t be mistaken. Lenny, who was directly across from me, stared at mother’s spirit with her mouth agape. Hunter looked on with approval, his eyes scanning the crowd of the Lost but not finding what he sought.
“You’re free now,” I whispered.
With a rush of cold wind the Ghostlight flared white, and I covered my eyes against the brightness. When it passed, the spirits were gone and the darkness enveloped us again, held back only by the twin beams of our headlamps.
“What the hell!” Lenny exclaimed, looking around.
“We freed the Lost. At least the ones that remained in the pool.”
“I can’t believe something like this is real!”
“It’s a lot, I know.”
“Ladies, we should get moving. Something is happening, do you not hear it?” Hunter asked, cocking his head to listen.
At first I heard nothing but my own heart pounding in my ears. Then, slowly, the sound of chanting rose through the stone floor. Something was happening inside the fortress. And I didn’t like the sound of it one bit.
Face Danger Results
Resource Update
Case Progress Update
Delve the Depths
We raced across the parapet, leaving the Spirit Pool behind. Ahead a squat, square tower rose up in our path. Narrow arrow slits pock marked the tower, but there was no other way inside. I slammed my hand against the stone, frustrated that we’d been foiled yet again.
“It will avail you nothing to assault the ancient stones,” a quiet, hissing voice said.
“Who said that?” I asked, startled, and gripped my service pistol tighter.
A heaving sigh, followed by clicking steps, echoed off the crenellations of the fortress wall as the source of the voice slither-walked into view. A four legged snake-like creature stepped into the light of our headlamps. Its iridescent scales captured the light and sent it back to us in a myriad of colors. It sat on its hind legs in front of me, curling its long, whip-like tail around his clawed feet. Two large, luminescent wings flared open behind the creature, then settled with a rustle at its sides.
“I did,” the creature replied.
“What are you?”
“I am called many things by many folk. Once I was an Oracle, sought out for my insight into the future. Now I am forgotten here in this dark vastness. Even the humans who call this ancient fortress home do not know me, but I know them.”
“Do you wish us harm, Oracle?” Hunter asked, stepping beside me with his iron blade drawn.
“Harm? That remains to be seen. I serve only Fate and answer to no one. Not even to one of the old ones such as you.”
Hunter’s eyes narrowed at the creature’s address, but then shrugged and looked at me. I was not reassured by the creature’s non-answer, and adjusted my grip on the pistol.
“We seek to find our people who we believe to be held inside this fortress.”
“Indeed, though only a few two of those who were brought below remain. Most have passed beyond the veils of this world thanks to the destruction of the baneful pool. For that act of kindness, you may request a boon from me. Only one, mind you, and I shall not interfere with your quest any longer.”
“We need to get into the fortress.”
“Then an entrance you shall find,” Oracle rumbled. “Look once more upon the ancient stone which you smote.”
By some strange magic, an arched opening appeared in the stone wall. Lenny and I watched, stunned, as a door manifested out of the nothingness and squeaked open.
“Go now, old one. Your skills will be needed within,” the creature addressed Hunter. “And you, young Belright, bound up in the fate of this world is your own. By your actions, the fabric of reality and the veil between time and space will break asunder or be bolstered. Much weight must your shoulders bear, but you are stronger than you think.”
With those final, cryptic words, the creature spread his wings and leapt into the air. Its iridescent scales created a kaleidoscope of fractured light upon the cavern as the rush of wind from its mighty wings pummeled the wall. It wheeled away into the darkness and vanished.
“That was a dragon,” Hunter said, exhaling sharply. “I thought they were a myth.”
“A dragon?” I asked, unfamiliar with the term.
“They were said to be ancient winged serpents known for their wisdom and ability to read the strands of Fate. But I’ve never read anything that suggests they were real.”
“That one certainly was,” Lenny called back from the tower. “And it created a door where there wasn’t one.”
The chanting could still be heard, louder now through the opening in the stone. The words, though I did not know them, washed over me and left my skin tingling.
“There’s some kind of strange energy carried by those words,” I muttered.
“It is magic, of a dark variety if I’m not wrong. We should hurry,” Hunter said, moving through the doorway.
Delve the Depths Results
Delve Progress Update
Ask the Oracle: Waypoint
Ask the Oracle
Locate Your Objective
The door led through a narrow hallway and out onto a small balcony. Below, a group of hooded people bowed before a massive stone statue depicting a creature with rippling muscles and long fangs protruding from his open mouth. Its clawed hands reached down toward the penitent, and the disemboweled body lying atop a stone altar.
As we watched from our vantage above the gathering, a hooded figure led a woman into the chamber and shoved her to her knees before the looming statue. Lenny clasped a hand over her mouth, muffling a sharp intake of breath.
“That’s Endre Rafe,” Lenny whispered. “She’s one of the crew leaders of the Midst Restoration Project.”
The hooded figure raised a curved dagger above the woman’s head. The blade hovered in the air as they began to speak in a lilting voice. The words were foreign to me, and I couldn’t make them out, but as she spoke the eyes of the statue began to glow a dull red.
“We have to move now,” I whispered. “Hunter, we can’t let them kill Endre. Trust me.”
Locate Your Objective Result
Can Selma and company stop whatever dark ritual is taking place in the Fortress of the Aspect? Find out in the final entry of the Sworn by Ghostlight: Wings of Rot series next Tuesday at 10am EST.
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