We enter the other church and strike up conversation with the Priests about the Inquisition.
I bring up the Inquisition quietly and Anatole senses motive and then divulges our entire plan, to which I am not happy about, as he didn’t share any info with us, and gets pissy at me every time I speak to anyone… Anyway, we get directed to talk to Drax, follower of Shax, who knows more about the catacombs.
I speak into our emeralds to update the crew on the fact that Drax has confirmed there is a connecting pathway to the other Church’s catacomb. I attempt to sense Drax’s motive, but it kinda comes back like he’s being genuine in his hatred of the Inquisition, but he also has edicts to plot and commit murders.
We to and fro on the whole murder dungeon thing and whether or not to trust Drax. I’m not for it, but we’re all kind of on the fence about whether or not murder labyrinth is a good idea.
At any rate, Drax is disappointed we won’t go into the labyrinth, but he offers us some priest robes to disguise ourselves with. With priest robes acquired, we promise to join him later as discussed and we move on our way.
We convey to the others that we would be going back to this Church later on in the evening, to traverse the murder halls and get into position to route our enemies.
We then transfer to Kon’s scene with Remy.
He finds Misha very easily, gets the book, and receives a hint that the secret guest is the author of the book “Dead but not forgotten”, it’s a blasphemous book that is considered a dark tome by Remy.
Kris finds out enough for the time being and they meet back up with us and discuss other findings, about five priests in the room, some less trustworthy than others, Remy is confident that they are not priests in that church at least.
We talk about how their dais was moved, the statues replaced with cheap imitations, our thoughts on the supposed murder labyrinths, Drax, Shax’s murders and what our plans are for the evening.
The scribe joins us back at the palace for snacks and then tells us who wrote that cursed book, Reclusiarch Vilma Merridie.
Kon asks why is she vilified… The scribe explains, “As far as we’re aware, she’s the one leading that whole mess. The book she wrote is all about how the current Gods are fucked and we need to return to Atreia. But that’s wrong!”
He goes on, “Atreia is dead! Worshipping the dead does nothing, but worshipping the ones that are tormenting us is much better!”
We discuss how the Inquisition doesn’t summon Atreia, they keep summoning Rovagug, potentially if we can figure out THAT, we might better understand their whole shtick.
We find out that the scribe has a copy of the book in question, and we ask him to retrieve it for us. He comes back with the book and its covered in chains and shackles, Anatole asks if those are real and I straight up say “No those aren’t real.” And immediately pull them off, and I was right.
I take and open the book, it has several hundred pages of papyrus. The contents page is garbage as the headings mean very little, but there are cloth bookmarks, and the scribe instructs me to open to his turquoise bookmark, which I do, it leads to Atreia.
The book mentions religious crusades they went on down into the darkness of the Abyss, seeking the light of those were gone. As brutality and death ruined everything, killing their party down to the last man, down to the Reclussiarch. She, Vilma, is saved as purifying fire burns away the dark, the entities that have been hunting her. Feeling the warmth and the growth, the corruption ending and new life beginning in her veins, she is born anew as the Reclussiarch. She carries the name Atreia in everything she does, she provides sacrifices to the dead god in hopes of bringing enough life energy to awaken him. As she writes, gods do not die, they only slumber.
Kon flicks the book to the entries on Desna, and remember new things about the song he was told was a poem from his last memory, from the Moss Piper.
Vilma very vehemently touts the corruption of the church of the host, and how it is cruel to force us to pray to gods who destroy us. A type of deconstruction of modern life in Kirin’Tor. It’s practically an insane person’s manifesto against the current regime.
In her book, she only notes her thoughts and feelings about monsters, not any names or titles; they are chaos, malic, violence, not actual things. Hiding my disappointment, I ask instead if the Thaumaturge schools have been able to confirm anything from her ramblings.
The Scribe tells us that the Spiders guild is the only one who claims to have found anything that could support her claims, but then the scribe discards the thought as the Spider man is a bit of a loony.
“Well, pretty safe to be firmly planted in the “kill the Inquisition” camp?”
Everyone agrees. Through all of this reading we have spent another few hours discussing things.
