Good morning! It’s Jonathan here with a STORY RECAP for the recent event, COLLECTION DAY. The goal of these Story Recap posts is to help fill in the blanks for those that might have missed an important mod, been at NPC camp, sleeping, or simply were not able to attend the game. These are major points of continuity that might be important as our season continues, and I hope this will help with the FOMO feels.
Tickets for our next event are on sale NOW!! You can buy tickets for our season 3 finale event, THE CICATRIX today!!
You can also find our other game recaps from this season online here:
So once you’ve been caught up, let’s refresh our memories about the premise behind the event…
Premise for Collection Day
In the bloody wake of Holy Mother Queen Jasper’s final walk; Bravado’s Morgue is damaged beyond normal repair. Its delicate state, even prior to the extended use of the terrible ritual that interrupted Jasper’s connection with The Cycle, is indicative of a greater problem in the San Saba Territories, and that is the infrastructural deterioration of the morgue system; which has been ongoing since the cataclysmic damage it sustained during the final days of the Hiway War.
The Grave Council, ostensibly responsible for the morgue system’s upkeep in the Greater Lonestar, is headed by the enigmatic spiritual leader and Mystagog Takheeta Firstborn of the Imix Tribe and Commander Rampart of the Reckoners; the Grave Council’s military arm. The Grave Council’s stated purpose, since its infancy in the wake of the Psionic Bomb, is to steward and to repair the deep structures of the morgue system; and to deliver to the San Saba people an uninterrupted and natural Infectious Cycle.
To that end, Takeeta Firstborn has realigned the purpose of Collection Day; the historical holiday upon which the Grave Council collects its Death Tax with her greater ideal, and to the end of stabilizing the morgue infrastructure the entire San Saba over. She, on behalf of the Grave Council, has agreed to accept not only Brass as the blood currency for her Tax, but Infection as well. In return for the lives of common farmers and delvers, she will pay their petty debts in full. Their biomass to her purpose, and their lives to her infernal engine of change.
Let’s look a bit deeper into what happened next..
A dark ritual
Since the last days of the Hiway War, Bravado and all of the San Saba have been infected with a lasting curse, the Plague of the Unfinished. The recently returned could emerge with this terrible wasting illness if not brought back carefully by a Sanctioned Graverobber of the Grave Council, a symptom of the damaged morgues. Though treatable, the illness would continue to plague the cycle of death until the cause was addressed. In this manner, Takheeta Firstborn, high Mystagogue of the Grave Council, set into motion the first steps of THE GREAT WORK — a plan to cure, for once and for all, the Plague of the Unfinished and to repair the injured Mortis Amaranthine in the San Saba.
With the help of mystagogue and graverobber teams simultaneously enacting an ancient Imix ritual on the morgues across the San Saba, from Essex to Waking, from Widow’s Peak to the Clutch, the Grave Council could complete an unthinkable and monumental task. The task would require a phenomenal amount of effort, psionic strength, and the timely coordination of each group of mystagogues working together. Takheeta herself would lead the ritual from the site closest to the ancient wound, closest to the point that the psionic bomb ravaged the Mortis at the close of the Hiway War, the tiny town of Bravado, and home of our story.
In the early darkness of Friday, the Grave Council elite, including Takheeta Firstborn, Commander Rampart, and several of the locally contracted members of the Grave Council in Bravado, assembled for the eve of Collection Day, a grim and hopeful purpose in mind — to FIX the wounded morgues of the San Saba in one grand gesture. However, much like saving a deeply wounded person, it would be necessary to make sure that the patient didn’t fight back against the life saving surgeries necessary to repair the Morgue. In order to repair the Morgues, they must first put the Mortis Amaranthine to sleep.
However, influencing the Grave Mind is a tricky and uncertain thing. Gathering five new Dusters, fresh off the Oxline, a coat of thin San Saba dust still on their clothing, Takheeta planned to use new faces to town to offer a lullaby to the Mortis. Singing a song with voices that the Mortis had no memory of, no recollection of, and those than have never passed through the morgues of Bravado was crucial to begin the GREAT WORK. These five new Dusters, Clover, Katherine, Jackal, Wormy, and Bessie, became the heroes that the Grave Council needed to enact their ritual.
Intoning the ancient words of the Prince Undying, that “Imprint is Matter, Matter is Imprint”, Takheeta set into motion her boldest plan. With the ritual, she would temporarily “move” the Morgue to a new location, convincing the Mortis that each time a soul was returned from death it was returned to place of her choosing instead. By claiming a memory of peace and happiness from each of the gathered Dusters, they could sing the Mortis Amaranthine into a coma and allow the Council a chance to “operate” on the Morgue from a place close by, but still outside of the Morgues themselves: THE NEAR DEATH.
The Emergence of the Near Death
Takheeta’s plan centered around the use of a powerful artifact from the ancient roving city of Barogue — THE CANTANKEROUS MATRIX. This device was a curiously powerful psionic crystal, built with psitech technology from the oldcestors, once lost to the Dune Sea and recently found by intrepid explorers last year. The device had been used by Commander Rampart to create the RUSTED CAGE that imprisoned the Gutmother back in September and thought stolen in the early hours of the morning after that ritual. How it ended up in Takheeta’s hands afterwards likely involved a betrayal of the rival leader of the Grave Council.
When held, the crystal was capable of empowering a psion with limitless mind, an endless battery for the arcane workings of psionics. Whether this relic was truly a piece of the Scion Vossa, the ancient heart of Barogue, stolen so long ago by Sister Mammon in her great betrayal, it was still uncertain. Surely it would have been bigger, if it was that ancient battery? Regardless, the relic was center to the Grave Council’s ritual to lull the Grave Mind to sleep and repair the massive damage to the Mortis.
In Takheeta’s hubris, she decided that the Cantankerous Matrix was the key to her plan to fix every morgue throughout the San Saba, and so she did the unthinkable — she broke it. From the fragments, she assembled the shattered pieces of the once titanic battery into a new creation, the CANTANKEROUS MATRIX, REFORGED. This new device would enable her mystagogues to empower the rituals of the Imix tribe of Unborn, passed down for generations, connecting each of her servants across the San Saba back to one, singular point. The process of remaking the artifact into something new nearly exhausted the once-limitless energy source, so they would need a new pool of psionic power to draw from. But, having achieved the unthinkable, rebuilding a psitech device of the oldcestors, Takheeta’s plan to fix all the morgues at once didn’t seem so far out of reach.
The new relic was implanted into a shallow wound in the ground, akin to cutting into the torso of someone undergoing open heart surgery. Within this NEAR DEATH, a liminal place at once physical and beyond death, the Cantankerous Matrix would call to the sleeping Morgue nearby and redirect its efforts into the Near Death. The place was as cold as death, filled with the memories of those heroic Dusters, built around a shrine to the Barogian relic. From within, a powerful psion could continue the GREAT WORK. When someone returned from the dead, they would now emerge at the Near Death instead, and the Groundskeepers could draw them back across the threshold of death and return them to life once more, in a temporary morgue free from the corruption of the Plague of the Unfinished.
It was a brilliant plan to allow the mystagogues of the Grave Council unfettered access to the damaged morgue for their healing rituals, but it was not without its own… side effects.
the fragmented dead
The process of moving the morgue across the town of Bravado had unintended consequences. First appearing Friday night, a new form of undead began emerging from an exit of the Mortis Amaranthine. Broken and unfinished, filled with the cancerous diseases of the damaged morgue, amalgams of nightmares, the FRAGMENTED DEAD became a new plague on the town. These powerful undead exhibited curious traits of multiple zed in one form. The zombie might rush forward with the speed of a Burster, survive countless blows with the endurance of a Tank, and chatter maddeningly at you like it was a Lost Boy. The distance between the morgues, and the ritual wrought by the mystics of the Grave Council was creating these broken, fragmented dead.
This same issue began to spread. Critters that fed on the dead, like the infamous MURDER GOAT DEER, quickly mutated from the unlikely new food source. The diseased dead could also spread the Plague of the Unfinished at a touch, and even though the doctors of the town knew a treatment plan for the dangerous disease, it exhausted resources of Mind and Infectious Material quickly. Even the Gravehead Raider Clans, those raiders that “herd” packs of zombies to weaken their prey joined in, collecting new hordes of Fragmented Dead to drive into town. Bravado quickly had it’s hands full with new, dangerous, mutated zed, raiders, and critters alike.
It was clear that the NEAR DEATH was the cause of the newly Fragmented Dead, and that the process would continue until the GREAT WORK was completed. For now, there was no answer but to simply endure the new threats.
the Tax Booth & the theft of the ledger
Early Saturday morning, the next stage of the GREAT WORK took place. The Grave Council arrived, in full ceremony with their force of graverobbers, mystagogues, and groundskeepers to begin their collection efforts for the holiest of days - COLLECTION DAY. Each year, the Collectors travel to the settlements of the San Saba, settling the books for another year by collecting the debts owed for services rendered. This year, however, the citizens of Bravado were provided an alternative means of payment.
Despite an attempt the night before Collection Day to steal the Grave Ledger, the antique book that records the debts of those that have died, the Grave Council remained resolute in the face of those that opposed the collection of the taxes. For an organization of shifting bureaucracies and voluminous records, acquiring a backup copy of the Ledger from Essex created an annoying delay, but did not disrupt the opening of the Tax Booth in Bravado. Rampart’s elite Reckoners also accompanied the retinue into town, determined to keep the peace and preserve the sanctity of their collection efforts, as well as to track down the culprits that would threaten a holy relic like the Ledger.
At the newly opened Booth, a citizen of Bravado could pay their debts in alternate means, by offering up a literal “pound of flesh”, blood and bone, or even an important part of their memories. Each donation had a different rate, chosen from a “menu” of ABSOLUTIONS. These donations, oblations to the Grave Mind itself, could be offered in lieu of hard currency like Brass notes. Farmers and townsfolk alike flocked to the booth to settle up, each choosing a manner to pay their debts that they thought they could afford.
When someone gave up a memory or organ, the donor would be ushered beyond the veil of the Near Death by a nearby Groundskeeper or Grave Council affiliate. Within the chilly embrace of the Mortis, the donor would give of themselves beneath the altar to the Cantankerous Matrix, casting their imprint, their biomass, into the blasphemous well of the Barogian relic. Each offering empowered the psionic crystal, restoring its connection to the many rituals happening concurrently across the San Saba. The Grave Council had a quota to make, and they set themselves to gathering what they could from the town.
The San Saba Republic
Following the events of QUEENSGRACE, the Tribes Disparate were left with a choice that would be settled in the wake of the death of Queen Jasper. In the waning moments of the Summit, several Regents of the Tribes left the moot in anger, including the leaders of the Antler Tribe, the Oxkillers, and the JaCinto Militia. The remaining Regents signed a contract to elect Boss Lucy Debs, leader of the Local 727, as the new Queen of the embattled faction. However, they still had work to decide the specifics of their new government and promised to have an answer within one month’s time. The no-nonsense Iron leader arrived in Bravado during Collection Day, ready to announce the results of their hard work, but with a few surprising guests in her retinue.
Colonel Sabbath Jacinto, the principled leader of one of the largest Fallow Hope populations in the San Saba, had returned after leaving in disgust at the end of the Summit. Boss Debs, realizing that they could not afford the loss of the Jacinto military, had reached out to the militia commander to apologize and seek her guidance. Colonel Jacinto had been right — it was more important that the Tribes make something new, instead of simply repeating the many mistakes of Queen Jasper. They must forge something on purpose. And so Boss Debs, and her new Regents, did just that.
And thus, the SAN SABA REPUBLIC was born.
No longer would they be known as the Tribes Disparate, but rather a united nation of peoples brought together in one purpose. Representing fully 50% of the population of the San Saba territories, there is strength in numbers. The Tribes could not remain a scattered peoples recovering from the Hiway War, but must embrace being a people with a home in Essex, people with a political future in the San Saba, and people with a chance to do something different. But the leaders must work for the people, representing their interests, spearheading their faction with ethical leadership, and having very little to hide.
Moments of historical significance are, always in retrospect, defined by the decisive action of a few indispensable actors in times of flux. In the whirlwind weeks following the assassination of Holy Mother Queen Jasper of the Tribes Disparate, the election of the new Antler’d Queen, and the departure of several key figures from the Disparate tribal structure - the Tribes themselves had turned inward and sought to redefine their place in the San Saba without their departed Holy Mother, while honoring their promise to democratize their leadership and bring their faction into the robust and political future of the contemporary San Saba.
The remaining Tribes, including the errant Jacinto Militia, had finally settled on a sweeping contract, to be signed by every participating member, that binds the Tribes together not under a monarch like the old Holy Mother; but under a Troika of power located in the municipal seat of Essex. The San Saba Republic would no longer be the tenuously strung together tribes, brought together during wartime under threat of annihilation; but a deliberate government designed to enforce the prosperity of its citizens.
the Troika
Three leaders were chosen, each representing a branch of the Troika, each specializing in their own way for the future of the San Saba Republic. Each of the three Authorities would manage the day to day affairs of the faction, and they would be from whom policy and position would ultimately derive, not just a singular leader in Boss Debs.
However, as the Chair refused to add new seats to accommodate the changes within the faction, they required the new government to choose a single face to be seated on the San Saba Board. Lucy Francis Debs, still preferring the “Boss” title over “Queen”, was chosen to represent the Republic, and to stand at the head of the Troika.
The Queen would hold the power of veto, and Lucy’s can-do attitude is generally understood to be the moral compass of the Triumvirate. With a focus on the infrastructure of the faction, particularly leveraging the deep pool of resources in Essex, Boss Debs now hopes to provide manufacturing to settlements across the San Saba, and in doing so, create an indispensable niche for her people.
The leader of the Jacinto Militia was chosen as Justicar, the military leader of the San Saba Republic. Colonel Sabbath Jacinto’s renewed zeal following her return would continue to redefine the presence of the Republic in the wastes of the Lone Star. Sabbath’s next goal is to set forth to establish a military presence in Essex, and allow the Republic military to be able to modernize beyond anything the San Saba Wastes has seen before.
The last of the Troika, the Spymaster is a necessary role in the contemporary San Saba, where law is listless and contracts are made of words. The leader of the Cali*Co Caravan, and open Final Knight, Malorous Mab now stands as the Spymaster. Malorous Mab has been a shadow broker in Essex since before the Fountainhead Incident. In the verdant and misty years that followed, Mab has only further developed her network of beggars, brokers and bruisers. Now, with the formation of the Republic, it is in the best interest of her charges (and her own philosophy) that she pursues power for her people not just in Essex, but across the San Saba.
With their new leadership, the Troika of the San Saba Republic set their sights on their real task in Bravado, seeing justice served for the death of their former Queen.
A very surprising Gauntlet
Shortly after the assassination of Queen Jasper, the villainous Grandfather Nichols, Nemesis plague doctor, escaped from an attempt to bring him to the Gauntlet to stand for the crime of Regicide. Marina La’Sander, leader of the Longberth fleets, struck him down, enacting the justice of the Tribes Disparate on the spot, rather than wait for the Law Dogs to do their part. However, this death enabled Nichols to slip from the grasp of the law once more.
Dr. Nichols, in a surprising move, simply returned once more to the town of Bravado, just in time for the Gauntlet, a man of his word. He had promised Jasper Cline, Vado Law Dog, he would simply report as directed should they go through the trouble to post a wanted poster for him. He had spent the morning leisurely mocking the Law Dogs in Bravado, walking brazenly through the town in open defiance of his impending trial. He repeatedly suggested that Tabitha St. Mercy, and the Justices of Sin, would simply let him walk free, ignoring his obvious crimes of murder and regicide.
Nichols, with an annoying and sarcastic grin, stood by as Tabitha read out his crimes, ready for the absolution he expected. However, his grin faded quickly as her dagger slipped between his ribs and stole his last breath in one swift blow, a few quiet words whispered in his ear as he died. He barely had time to express his surprise before the light faded from his eyes. Justice was served, despite the rumors to the contrary.
Next, the Regent of the Longberths, Marina La’Sander, stood defiantly against the Warden of Killhouse to answer for her crimes. With Boss Debs, Colonel Jacinto, and Mab nearby, she defended her actions in killing Nichols, citing his many crimes, his assassination of the Queen, and the foul control he could wield against the unwary. One of the townsfolk, Roux, tried to mediate on behalf of Marina, arguing that Junkerpunk law should apply instead, but Justice Tidus, the Justice of Sin officiating over the Gauntlet was unimpressed by Marina’s argument. With a single round from his ornate revolver, Marina was executed for her violation of San Saba law, proving that even powerful faction leaders could not escape justice.
Lastly, the criminal Valentina Systole, charged with the murder of several Law Dogs in Essex was brought forth at the Gauntlet. She was a former champion of the Local 727 during the Summit, and even Boss Debs and Mikhael the Red offered their infection to protect the young Red Star champion. Others still offered to stand in the place of the champion but Valentina refused the assistance, standing to face their punishment alone. Another shot, another body at the crossroads.
The grisly business of the Gauntlet was concluded, but it would not be the last death that day.
Broken Rituals
Agents of Murder Incorporated, following their zealous charge to remove threats from the Wastes, followed the corpse of Dr. Nichols into the Near Death in a foul MURDER DIVE. Within the temporary Mortis, they struck down the Nemesis once more, ripping Infection from him within the morgue itself, regardless of the disruption or consequences of bodily entering the Mortis to commit their task. It was over as quick as it began, their grim purpose complete. However, Nichols survived the attempt, having barely enough Infection to return from the Morgue after the murderous assassination. On his way out of town, cleared of his crimes by his death at the Gauntlet, Nichols spoke of traveling north to Requiem to start a new project far away from the San Saba. Unfortunately, his train never arrived in Requiem, and his whereabouts now are unknown.
The second interruption to the plans of the Grave Council was more direct. Masked assassins, faceless minions of the shadowy organization, struck directly against the leaders of the Grave Council itself. Both Commander Rampart and Takheeta Firstborn were targeted by bounties by the criminal organization, but Takheeta was the first to die. At first, it was thought that she was a victim of an attempted bombing of the Grave Tax Booth. Despite escaping the trapped booth, she was ambushed shortly after and her throat ritualistically slit, despite the threat to disrupting the ritual.
The warnings of the Grave Council became dire, as the Fragmented Dead began seeking out the Near Death, throwing themselves at the Tax Booth in an attempt to get at the powerful psionic crystal within. While Takheeta returned after the assassination, her focus had been broken, and it was clear something was wrong and time was running out. The groundskeepers and Auditors of the Grave Council stepped up their efforts to collect biomass and brass from the town, desperate to reach their goal before the sun set and the ritual to save the Morgues concluded. In the end, the town managed to not only meet the goal for donations and absolutions, but exceeded it! Hopefully, the additional resources would be enough to counteract whatever disruption the interference of Murder Incorporated posed to the Great Work.
Drawing her three most powerful mystagogues from Essex, Takheeta prepared for the final stage of her ritual. She brought forth the ancient relic, the Cantankerous Matrix, from its shrine within the Near Death, drawing upon the renewed pool of energy it held. Bastioned with the biomass and offerings of those that owed a Grave Tax, the psionic crystal was brimming with potential, a powerful tool towards the ritual’s requirements. With agents in each of the major morgues across the San Saba performing their part at exactly the same time, they would leech the poison from the Mortis Amaranthine, and heal the sickness that was plaguing them. A ritual circle was enacted at the Crossroads, at the heart of Bravado, a geographic singularity at the exact center of the town, exactly as the sun set — providing a way to synchronize the rituals across the San Saba. Intoning the words of the Imix Tribe, Takheeta attempted to conclude her great work, achieving the unthinkable. Her ritual would be the seal that linked each of the other cities together into one titanic effort, healing and banishing the wound within the Mortis.
But such a great working would require a sacrifice to fortify the ritual. A vessel for the energies of the Cantankerous Matrix, and a way to link each Grave Council ritual across the wastes.
A lone voice emerged in the darkness, volunteering their life, their Infection, and their very being to save the town, to save the San Saba, and to return some measure of balance to the Mortis. The Vado Unborn known as EIGHT, offered to sacrifice every last drop of their Infection to merge with Grave Mind. Despite the protest of his friends and family, Eight was resolute in facing oblivion, provided the town could defend the ritual from disruption. Takheeta ritually executed Eight, using blood and bone, flesh and form to bind and connect the Cantankerous Matrix with the wounded morgue, forming a construct known as a GRAVEMIND SHARD.
But something went wrong.
Whether it was the distraction or assassination, or simply arrogance on behalf of the Unborn cultist of the Quiet Path, the power of the ritual was growing out of control. Undead began swarming against the ritual circle, throwing themselves bodily against the defenders, while the very ground itself opened into a cavernous maw, consuming Takheeta, her three loyal mystagogues, the body of Eight, and anyone close enough and unlucky enough to be swallowed whole by the Mortis Amaranthine. It was if an immune response of the Grave Mind was reacting to the attempts to heal it, and the Great Work was undone in a terrible earth rending climax.
Takheeta and Eight were gone, along with the Cantankerous Matrix — bodily consumed by the Mortis Amaranthine.
The End, and beginning, of Takheeta Firstborn
Takheeta was dead, every bit of her last Infection consumed by the Grave Mind, torn to pieces by the power of the unholy energies she attempted to control. Her three acolytes were shattered, every last Infection consumed in the chaos, and their forms sundered and fragmented alongside the very soul of Takheeta. Their combined zed would emerge soon enough, fragmented, mutated, and unholy like the rest of them, as the ritual had been disrupted at its climax. Eight’s sacrifice was suspended and directionless under the ground, the ritual continuing to build in power without a way to discharge the energy.
Commander Rampart arrived back in town on the Oxline, fresh from the successful ritual in Essex, seeking to understand what had gone wrong in Bravado. The rituals had been completed in each of the other locations, but the final note of the melody that they shared had not been sounded. If it was not completed soon, all of the potential energy, all of the biomass and absolutions offered during Collection Day, the sacrifice of Eight would be for naught. After communing with the Near Death, the Rampart and the graverobbers of the Bravado isolated one last chance to recover the progress they had made with the ritual.
The Mystagogue leader had been sundered into three pieces, her id, ego, and superego shattered into psionic shards of memory cast across Bravado. Her shards had emerged, twisted into the broken forms of her former acolytes, three abominations each brimming with psionic power of Takheeta’s considerable gift. Each had been drawn near a site of a Morgue exit, one near the old miner’s shack at the head of the Oxline, one at the original morgue of the town at the Hallows, and the last at the edge of Widows’ Walk. The remnants of her personality were seeking out the psionic energy at each morgue, seeking to consume it in their ravenous hunger. Each shard was still a fragment of Takheeta, and that meant that it might be possible that their imprint could be recovered if the town could destroy each of the echoes of Takheeta simultaneously. The contained energy in the shards should be enough to complete the ritual, if they acted quickly. They split into three strike forces, spread out across the town, to fight the undead things that Takheeta had become.
Like clockwork, the horde of Fragmented Dead that had emerged within the shadow of Takheeta’s failed ritual answered the call of the mishapen copies of Takheeta. The wails of the mishapen zed became murderous as the hellish things screamed with psionic force, imbued the zed with adrenaline and speed, or even bolstered their numbers by reshaping and repairing the dead as soon as they were slain. The three zed hordes were held back by the brave citizens of Bravado, each strike team operating at each distant corner of the town at once, while they focused on stopping the shards from consuming the power of the ritual into themselves. It was a race to isolate and defeat the shard, before they could consume and destroy the morgues they emerged from.
The Takheeta clones were destroyed, and the congealed essence of their personality, formed that tainted Infection into shattered psionic crystals. Each crystal was brought back to the ritual site to complete the work Takheeta started. If the shards of Infection could be combined, they could combine her Imprint into something known as a GRAVEMIND SHARD, a gestalt form for the consciousness known as the Grave Mind. While many attribute a sentience to the Grave Mind, it is truly an egoless intelligence, shared between all of the imprints stored in the Mortis at that time. A Shard would simply provide an outlet for that ego of the person contained within, a voice for the grave, flavored by the person that they once were. Gravemind Shards like this were rare, but it would be a way to contain her essence for a time.
However, Takheeta was quite mad and barely sane, even while alive, and especially not now in the shattered psyche of the broken shards of her and her acolytes combined. If left unchecked her undeath would surely pervert and corrupt the Gravemind Shard and the final healing ritual of the Great Work into something terrible. Her machinations, zeal, and ambition in life would bleed into the Shard and simply create a problem for another day. Takheeta needed what she sought most in her life and her journey on the Quiet Path — balance.
A lone and quiet voice reminded them of the sacrifice of Eight. He was strong, resolute. He was determined. He could be the soldier to keep the tainted energies of Takheeta in check. He had emerged in the darkness, volunteering life, Infection, and their very being to save the town, to save the San Saba, and to provide some measure of balance to the Grave Mind. A hero. The sacrifice of Eight could be redirected, a way to contain the final energies that Takheeta was controlling, and perhaps it would offer the balance that Takheeta needed to form a stable Gravemind Shard, their combined strength balancing out the inequity of that pairing.
The energy was building out of control, and if they could not contain the force of the Cantankerous Matrix deep within the ground, something terrible could occur. The fragments of Takheeta had been called out by Eight’s sacrifice, their blood and bone an irresistible lure, remerging from the depths in the singular, empowered form of Takheeta’s zombie, whole and more dangerous than ever. An impromptu morgue emerged at the Crossroads, filling in the fiery collapse of the former ritual with the hate and rage of the fragmented dead as they emerged in a massive horde.
With the life sustaining power of the Barogian relic infused into her body, Takheeta rose with a cry, drawing a vast horde of the Fragmented Dead to her side, slaves to the dark will of her unholy power. The shard-thing that was once Takheeta Firstborn roared in defiance, empowering the dead further, turning even the lowly shambler into a mighty terror, with the power of a Hate, the speed of a Burster, and the endurance of a Tank. The dead crashed again and again into the line of defenders, breaking through occasionally as they took down with their mutated strength. Takheeta herself was a dark siren, singing a song of death and reincarnation, a living entity of energy and power corrupted by her inability to contain the awesome might of the relic she was infused with.
It would take three times to defeat Takheeta, dragging her corpse to the ground and into the center of the aborted ritual circle from before at the Crossroads. Each time, a team of aberrants slipped into the chasm left by the ritual, holding Takheeta down while the shard of her personality and Infection, imbued with the strength and personality of Eight, was driven back into her. Each time, the shard leeched some of the broken essences of her mystagogues, and solidified the intent and purpose of the ritual, pushing it closer to completion.
The roars of the dead grew in tenor, echoing the building crescendo of the ritual. With a final hissing blow, driving the wedge of psionic crystal into the screaming undead monstrosity that once was Takheeta, the force of the ritual rang out in a single clarion call. Thrown from their footing by the shifting earth, the quaking ground, and spasming Mortis, the defenders of Bravado were thrown back from the Crossroads as the battle was ended in a massive pulse of psionic energy. Echoing in the darkness, in each of the cardinal directions, the power of the synchronous Grave Council rituals answered the call, concentrating the healing energy of the Cantankerous Matrix and directing it into the wound of the Mortis.
Across the San Saba, each of the ritual sites directed the energy of the collection biomass and psionic power towards a singular purpose. The ancient memory of that psionic bomb that ended the Hiway War was sealed away for good. The destruction it had wrecked on the Mortis Amaranthine was reversed. The gaping, infected tear in reality that marked the weakness of the morgues across the San Saba began to close, growing and scarring over, rebuilding the missing pieces into a uniform and purposeful whole. The sacrifices, absolutions, and effort of Collection Day were salvaged, completing Takheeta’s mad dream, her legacy, and finally advancing the cause and charter that the founders of the Grave Council had envisioned.
The morgues of the San Saba were healed.
the silent morgues
The corrupted form of Takheeta had been slain, all three shards of her being killed and forcibly combined with the sacrifice of Eight to form a new Gravemind Shard. The Cantankerous Matrix was nowhere to be found, perhaps contained below, inside the Mortis Amaranthine, along with the imprints of Takheeta and Eight. The healing energies of the Grave Council ritual had worked.
But perhaps too well.
Psi-tech always has a cost. And that cost is often more than you realize, or were willing to pay. It was a lesson that the people of ancient Barogue and the Prince Undying had learned so long ago in the fall of the roving city. The psionic and faithful ritual of the Grave Council and the Quiet Path had healed the morgues, but the energy continued, pulsing repeatedly into the fungal growth of the Mortis, directing it to heal and regenerate any wound, even the very orifices that provided an exit for the reborn Lineages that emerged. The effect seemed to spread from the Crossroads, stretching out to each of the morgues in Bravado within the hour, sealing away any entrance or exit that could be used to enter the Grave Mind.
If you died in Bravado now, you couldn’t come back.
The scar tissue was forming quickly, and no amount of cutting, hacking, or chopping at the ground, at the fungal protrusions could arrest the healing power of the Cantankerous Matrix. It was a limitless battery, constantly healing the damage as fast as it was dealt. The last legacy of Takheeta Firstborn had been twisted into a curse, sealing the Mortis Amaranthine away from use. The Groundskeepers could not retrieve the recently dead. Necrokinetics proved useless to reach across the barrier of death, and even stitches to the Abyss proved fruitless.
The familiar wail of the dead, the psionic pull of the grave was silenced. Psions could feel nothing below them, in the depths of the Mortis, but for a singular, pulsing energy emerging from where the Cantankerous Matrix and the combined shard of Takheet and Eight must be interred, as in a final tomb. The sacrifices of so many seemed hollow, in that moment. The silent morgues stilled any conversation, as folks tried to grapple with the idea that any death may be the last.
By the morning, telegram communication revealed the strange scarring had progressed as far as Essex. At the rate of spread, it would cover the San Saba within the week. Several citizens of Bravado who died in the night didn’t return, and the phenomenon was spreading to much more heavily populated areas, where the loss would be felt even more deeply.
The silence of the grave spreads deep shadows across the San Saba.
other threads during collection day
The crazy scientists of NASCENT became desperate for funding and enacted a last-ditch effort to blackmail new victims, in the form of “NASCENT’s Blow Out Sale”. By implanting strange “pyroclastic” bombs into a handful of individuals of the town, they attempted to charge Brass to remove the devices or else. They even managed to plant a powerful bomb at the Tax Booth that threatened to collapse the Booth, the Near Death and the hopes of the citizens of Bravado in one firey explosion. Thankfully, the bombs were disabled and the NASCENT scientists killed and run out of town.
Multiple delves occurred throughout the Collection Day. One, led by the mysterious scientists of the Newton Institute, cracked into a newly discovered bunker in search of ancient treasures. The Ark Society returned when a sinkhole opened up underneath the Depot, employing those fool hardy enough to delve into the depths to repair the damage. Earthquakes from the Grave Council ritual provided new opportunities to access caverns below, and several valuable artifacts were discovered in the process. In each case, delvers emerged with treasures from the tunnels below Bravado, reminding all of the value in spelunking into the depths of the strange facility under the town.
Old memories returned Friday night, called once more by the distracted Mortis. Several Nemesis of Old Bravo made an appearance, including Jason, Samara, Nonoez, Leatherface, and Scarecrow. Nemesis believe that by becoming something so evil they can force someone to embrace good in equal balance and rise up to stop them. While recent Nemesis like Eyeless Jack and Grandfather Nichols had been an issue, this was an echo of a past time when the Nemesis Cult ruled triumphant in Old Bravo. The crazed cultists of the Tellingvisionaries were responsible for murdering several townsfolk in their rampage through the town. Luckily the next trade weekend falls on Friday the 13th, so they are unlikely to return…
Boss Wyatt, leader of the Law Dogs, was assassinated on Saturday, thought to be another victim of the murderous cultists of the Many Faced Masks. He was poisoned with a foul concoction that robbed his life in a heartbeat, but did not return from the morgue. He is thought to be still trapped within, another victim of the terrible consequences of the botched ritual. Without a leader for the Law Dogs, it would be challenging to keep peace in town if things continued to get worse.
Later in the afternoon on Saturday, Commander Rampart and his Reckoners tracked down the culprits of the theft of the Ledger, bringing their crime to the attention of the Law Dogs, for a violation of the San Saba Charter itself. Based on an anonymous tip from a “concerned citizen”, likely someone who had inside knowledge on the actions of those that did the deed, the leader of the Grave Council was able to psionically interrogate one of the Postwalkers of Bravado, Abe Callaghan, and force a confession from them via telepathic control. It was a powerful crime indeed, as the Charter of the Board gives the Council specific authority to collect the Grave Tax. The young Postwalker would be brought up on charges of “impeding the Grave Tax” during the next month’s Gauntlet, though curiously it was clear that several must have been involved and only the single person was charged. Whatever deal Abe struck with the Grave Council must have bought clemency for their friends, but what punishment will be leveraged against them in May?
Several Law Dogs were murdered in a botched raid on a Crystal Candy Shoppe late Saturday night. During the raid, they attempted to stop several criminals from harvesting Candy from their helpless victims, only to be ruthlessly struck down in turn by their opponents. Unfortunately, they died after the death of Takheeta and the silencing of the morgues, so they remain trapped within the morgue, further straining the power of the Law Dogs to enforce the law in Bravado. With Boss Wyatt and the majority of his men lost inside the Mortis, unable to escape, the criminals of Bravado are surely celebrating their surprise fortune.
Wrap up
It was a busy game, as you can see.
It all certainly sounds exciting. How will we resolve the morgue crisis? What happened to those that died and didn’t come back like Boss Wyatt? What happened to Takheeta and Eight? What happens if YOU die during the next event? How do you face a world where you might only live once?
Let’s find out together!
On my next Rules Ramble, we will narrow our focus to just one Skill that seems suddenly important for the 60% of our game with Criminal ties, DISGUISE and Proficient Stealth!.
Get your tickets TODAY and join us for THE CICATRIX, our SEASON FINALE, and check out a final melody to say goodbye to Collection Day, performed by our very own Kalen Lewis:
This Month’s Kalen S. Lewis Song:
When I Went Down to ‘Vado to the tune of This Song by Lost Dog Street Band
Teaser for “THE CICATRIX”
One last thing. It wouldn’t be a Story Recap without a glimpse into the future. Let’s look at the premise for the next event, a sneak peek into what is in store for our characters next game:
The morgues in Bravado have stopped working. The dead have not returned for the better part of a month. Small shrines to the missing dot the long roads between settlements and the aberrant population reports that the wails of the dead, so often cacophonous in the psionically demented mind, are silent.
Takheeta Firstborn has been killed, cut low at the penultimate moment of her triumph, and transfigured into a Gravemind Shard; a kind of semi sentient intelligence that occupies a greater portion of the gestalt that is the local “Gravemind” itself. Her death has made way for General Rampart, new leader of the Grave Council, to impart policy. But, in evoking the Cantankerous Matrix to heal the Morgues across the San Saba, instead the Grave Council has metastasized a fatal threat to the Lonestar, and the Infectious Cycle itself. Over the past several weeks, tumorous protrusions have formed like a layer of scar tissue, cutting off the exit for the newly returned from the Grave.
Now, General Rampart has formulated a scheme to re-open the morgues across the Lonestar Wastes, not by punching through the thick layer of cutaneous tissue that has formed like a plug over every morgue the entire municipality over, but instead by treating the aberrance from the inside; by delving into the abyssal depths of the Mortis, through layers of skin and skein, to where the heart of the cancer pulses in darkness and filth.
In the midst of this emerging crisis, the politics of the San Saba Board still looms. The annual Stakeholder’s Meeting is scheduled for May, despite the threat of the broken morgues. During the Meeting, each of the contracted members of the various factions get to weigh in on the upcoming changes to the San Saba Charter, though some chafe against the law and protest the carnival of capitalism. Surrounded by machinations and manipulations, conspiracy and chicanery, wheeling and dealing, politics and persuasion. the leaders of the Board and their many plots stirs something dark beneath the ground.
Deep below New Bravado, and deeper still than the thin layer of biomass where the Gravemind, and The Eightfold Mother supposedly lurk; against resonant and bloodghast, recollection and reaver, the denizens of Bravado will need to combat the lurking memories that have pooled beneath the morgues like so much sump dump, and press upwards towards the surface until the scab breaks, and the biomass and blood may cleanly osmote between reality, and the Grave.