Call of the Wild 2.5
| Call of the Wild 2.5 | |
|---|---|
| Date | 9/13/23 |
| Storyteller | Slayzo |
| Tier | Expert |
| Player Characters | Serene, Berta, Tuli, Grist, Terog, Aleth |
| Rewards | 200 xp, Council money thrown at the problem, questionably distributed |
| Result | Mooted |
| Author | Aleth |
| Downtime | 1 |
The leaders of Desperate Hope must find a werecreature that has gone missing in Under Bright.
Log
Previously, in the Call of the Wild series of Expeditions, we encountered werecreatures on their own terms in the forests to the north. In the first encounter, they were subdued without harm and a diplomatic meeting arranged. In the second, we were attacked, and only their leader, a weremole that fled underground, and an avian captive left the scene alive on their side.
We kept the captive subdued through the night of the full moon that followed, bringing him back to Onadbyr, and a day later, to Desperate Hope. I received permission to train the creature there. Those in the know believed he was a wild animal, while those who knew he wasn't didn't learn of the arrangement until after it broke down (aside from the man himself, who hid this fact, allegedly out of fear he'd be summarily executed).
More than three weeks later, he escaped into Under Bright by hiding and becoming anonymous among the village's population. Over the course of the following day it was clarified: He had attacked in the form of a bird because he cannot fly otherwise. He remained in the form of a bird all that time to avoid getting caught, while in his other form he has an entirely human appearance.
With more associates on the case, and armed with more understanding of what we were dealing with, we began to investigate. Some methods were more helpful than others. As word of the missing werecreature and our search for it spread much faster than said search could expand, the leaders of Desperate Hope called everyone in the settlement to a meeting and brought in every straggler we could find.
At the meeting, we made little progress, because neither we nor the local villagers could identify most of the others present at the meeting, and those present who'd arrived only in the past day or two made up a sizeable chunk of those in the search area. The only real effective measures any of us took that helped us accomplish the objective of this expedition were controlling the entrance, which had been done before the expedition was launched, and a speech given by Grist, which inspired the werecreature to come to his office, introduce himself, share information about the cult he'd been part of and discuss plans to become a double agent and help us unravel it.
We learned the cult leader has three lieutenants: A powerful and loyal werewhale, a cruel and brutal wereroc, and a well-armoured werelioness. This last, is says, the only female among the lieutenants, and the only member of the cult who is an actual child of 'the Father'. Our potential ally suggests this last might be the most practical thread to pull on if we wish to unravel this cult and the danger it poses to Onadbyr.
He shared rumours about the cult leader as well: We had already heard he is thousands of years old, but it's suggested he may be an elf druid with the power to spread the shapeshifters' curse of any form in any form he takes, that this is how he allows new recruits to the cult to choose their beast form. I myself don't see 'elf' or 'druid' as explanations for how one can live for thousands of years, nor is that what I saw when we encountered him, but it's certainly a different perspective.
We decided to let him go in return for his cooperation. We came up with plans to bring more social order to Under Bright to reduce its vulnerability to infiltration in the future, and also purely for the benefits of making sure more of our people have a chance to get to know each other, and that outsiders are kept out of the underground. I followed every procedure to the letter regarding the handling of our captive over the past month, so I recommend additional checks so that at least the next time a mistake like this is made, it won't have been filed in triplicate.
Some of our associates did not seem to understand this was an investigation, and approached the matter by bluntly interrogating random villagers and threatening to cause or causing them physical harm. While unhelpful in the conventional sense, it did drive those more inclined toward dialogue to gather the villagers for their own protection, and hold the crowd's attention, which ultimately enabled Grist's speech.