The Delta

[The Forgotten God]

Kjell walks back into the tavern and finds her two victims. The one she had shot to hell has a coin bag and a satchel. The satchel has some papers and supplies in it.

[Kjell Ó Raghallaigh]

She rifled through the papers to see if there was anything written on them.

[The Forgotten God]

One of them is a crude map of the village that had marks for when they should ambush the party. The other paper is some sort of letter from someone named “N” in Bastion. It looks like a contract promising gold in exchange for his services on a mission. When it’s done the mercenary was supposed to get paid at the West Wind tavern.

[Thalia Vedas]

“And what I’d the most trying to come down, is that not a constant threat?” She asked, frowning a little. She wasn’t a downer she just liked to make sure all things were considered. “I seems we lose nothing for trying. Many I see them?” She asked, hoping they were made of metal.

[Geoffrey Ravenhurst]

Herneiros handed her the bag of cursed stones. "There are fifteen in all, plus some shattered remains scattered around the village. What's curious is that I have never seen anything actually produce Mist like that. In all these centuries, I have never heard of any sort of possible source for it..."

The Wild Huntsman stroked his blonde beard as he considered the mystery.

[Thalia Vedas]

“I doubt this is a source” she replied, though it was a guess, “more like an egg maybe, or a cell?” She could well be wrong though, “that’s an impressive ability you have.”

[Dr. Archimedes Steller]

Archie was expecting that someone, at least a single one of them, would care about the centenarian man almost having an emotional breakdown. Despite having failed to gather the attention he desired in order to tell his story, he decided to tell it anyway...

"Blade Demons... They are horror made flesh. Just the thought send shivers up my spine." He said grimly. "This happened decades back, just before Lord Attenshire had passed. I was leading a major expedition into some mist
-covered island. We had hired the best Mist Hunters, I had an army of interns with me. I was foolish back then, I failed to see that they were demons, I had myself believing they were yet another marvel of the natural world... You see, they are just like giant praying-mantises, only covered in metal platings and with blades instead of arms. I thought this was merely a freak evolutionary accident... But, boy, how wrong I was."

"We managed to capture a single specimen in our travel, but that was all I needed. To bring a live Blade Demon to the university would guarantee my retirement and legacy..." He stared at his companions, his hands fidgeting anxiously. "It was too easy. The whole trapping and caging. I didn't see it back then, but it knew. It wanted to be captured."

"All was going well, I had invited the greatest minds to the Lord Attenshire Conference Hall in the University's Campus for Natural History... But then, the night before my presentation, it escaped. They are very fast and can climb walls, just like spiders, so it is a nightmare to catch one in a crowded environment." Archie stared blankly at the ground. "At some point, we managed to shoot it down from the ceiling, but by then, it was already too late... We lost many a good academicians that day."

[The Forgotten God]

“And this,” Elise said darkly, “is why the Academy sent me.”

[Justine-Juliette de Vair]

Justine at last piped up. “Did you want to check out their ship? It never fired back. We could find even more information there. Make camp here and half of us board the ship.” She looked between them all, sure Nigel would agree, and even Kjell or Silvia.

[The Forgotten God]

“I’ll go with you,” Elise offered. “It’s strange the entire ship was deserted. They don’t have the numbers to have emptied it if this one’s telling the truth.” She nodded to Justine then looked about for others thinking along the same lines.

[Justine-Juliette de Vair]

“Not even sailors,” she said, looking out in the distance at the ship. She unslung her arquebus and made sure everything was in order. “I’m ready when the rest of you are.”

[Ceutinde]

Ceutinde listened with horror at the professor's story, and was thankful for the distraction. "I'll come too. Might be some survivors on board that need seeing to."

[Thalia Vedas]

“Perhaps it’s been left there as yet another trap?” Thalia suggested, looking at the group of people all too happy to run into every situation it seemed. She looked to Elise. “Is there anything you can do to see?”

[The Forgotten God]

Elise shook her head. “I can’t,” she said. “Not inside the ship anyway.”

[Geoffrey Ravenhurst]

"If we need to steal their vessel later, I can deactivate the stones again," Herneiros offered. "But at least we know our enemies won't be making use of it in the meantime."