Centrum Glacies Session 144: Experiment
Week 144 of the Dungeons and Dragons Campaign in Centrum Glacies continues as the party discovers their role in Jak-Rath’s experiment.
Like my other campaign, I’m turning this one into a book series. You can check out the first one here.
Anyway, just like my other campaign, there is a whole lot going on and I don’t want to elaborate on every moving piece in the story. You can see the whole thing in the book series.
!!!Trigger Warning!!!
This story deals with a cruel world with some horrific twists. So far, this campaign has featured: Animals getting killed, Genocide, lots of body horror, evil cults, brainwashing, torture, psychological warfare, child abuse, and slavery.
Most recently, the party helped cause a complete planetary genocide. Save a few survivors, no one remains from that world. They are still grappling with this unfathomable loss of life and their role in making it happen. It is clear that their suffering is far from over. They can only hope they don’t cause untold pain to an even more untold more.
!!!Final Trigger Warning!!!
The party continued wandering the memories of ghosts in a haunted town. And out in the woods beyond it, the group had followed a ghost child. After defeating several wraiths that attacked the party for intruding, the girl reappeared. She cried out for her mother and father. But they were not in the woods. And so the girl ran back to the haunted town.
The party entered the town and watched as the ghost faded away once more. The town however took on a dark greenish hue. The Fel Flame used by the Cult of Obsidian engulfed everything. Though not the party. This was part of the land’s memory.
As ghostly Cultists appeared all around the village, the girl reappeared and her parents were with her this time. She screamed as her family burned in front of her. And the party felt horror secondhand even though they knew that the fates of these doomed people could not be changed.
In fact skeletons slowly appeared on the ground marking the countless dead that the Cult were leaving behind. The group had accepted a commission to investigate a cursed town. And they bore witness to an old massacre. Teztcal ignored the horrors around him though. He tried to pick up a bone, completely oblivious to the fact that they like everything else were apparitions showing the past.
The Past Darkens
The child’s parents burned away with only her screams remaining. Even the bones vanished. The flames and majority of Cultists disappeared as well. All save a few who surrounded the young girl. She screamed more, though her voice should have given out long before this given what she had witnessed.
One of the Cultists spoke in an audible voice. She was to be taken away for an “experiment”. Knowledge from the present left a dark hint at who was behind this. And it only added to a certain Drow’s crimes against all life.
Jyona was forced into action. And even though she knew these were images from the past, what she saw her enraged her so much that she dropped logic to the wayside and attack the images of the Cultists out of anger. But as these were intangible memories she couldn’t stop what was happening before her eyes.
But her actions had not gone unnoticed. Wraiths appeared to punish the party for intruding on this place. Though they were no match for this group. They faded away, no different than what had happened in the party’s last clash with ghosts.
Again the child appeared, and her ghostly captors alongside her. Jyona again attacked out of anger. With even more desire to destroy these Cultists than before. But this was still a vision of the past. She could do nothing to interfere with what was happening.
Jak-Rath Appears
And as if this scenario couldn’t get worse, the one behind this tragedy, this small scale genocide made an appearance. Jak-Rath, the mad scientist of the Cult of Obsidian, and architect of this slaughter appeared and it was clear he had plans for the girl. His words were legible as well. The girl would serve as a “Control variable” for this experiment. The sole survivor.
Trent rushed forward to thorn whip him. In case Jak-Rath was not an illusion. The Druid could not miss a chance to slaughter this most wicked of beings. But like everything else, Jak-Rath at least the one here was an illusion from the past.
Jyona put a hand on his shoulder to calm him. She was just as furious by these events. And she reminded her friend that he should save his anger and energy for the real monster. And they would find him.
Trent didn’t want to wait to find the Dark Elf though. He screamed for Jak-rath to stop hiding behind his illusions. The Druid wanted to crush his body and skull. And not just for what he had witnessed here.
Teztcal had an idea to help Trent. If they threatened “his spy”, the mad scientist would come. He and Kisara quickly moved to place daggers and claws at Obrom’s neck. It seemed like a stupid plan. Like so many other ideas that the Dragon it seemed insane.
Jak-Rath Appears in the Present
What was wild about this plan, is that it worked. The real Jak-Rah appeared. Or at least a projection of him as Trent learned when he attacked it. But this one was from the present and talked to the group.
Trent and he spat back and forth. But the conversation was unequal. For Jak-Rath was much more focused on another of his companions. Specifically Obrom, who was at the center of the experiment in this village. His brand turned out to be the end result of the slaughter of this village. Which threw some suspicion from Trent. Was Teztcal a spy all along?
But as the group wondered how they could stop Jak-Rath at this point, the Dark Elf groaned. According to him, Obrom’s actions as well as the party with him had ended this experiment. He admonished the Bard and warned that he would soon understand what he had been granted by being at the center of it.
Jak-Rath vanished and denied Trent his revenge. And at the same time, Obrom’s brand vanished. When it did, the sheer extent of what Jak-Rath had done was made clear. The bard started transforming into a Demon. His brand had held the transformation back. But no longer.
Obrom Transforms
Trent asked if Obrom if he was still in there. The Druid did not wish to fight his friend. Especially when he was now worried about his potential connection to the Cult. Even more so the fact that until he could suppress his transformation,
Another vision appeared. On final truth for the party as the curse over the village had been broken. That young girl had grown up to be Alin the Platinum Ranked Adventurer who had attacked the party when she had discovered the Dark Elf town in the Abyssal Desert. It had seemed extreme at the time, but now that they knew why she had sworn her oath, her actions had made more sense. Yet her life, filled with tragedy, had ended with it. They didn’t feel better as they left the village.
Teztcal doubled down on him being a spy. And now that Jak-Rath had claimed that the bard, now turned Demon was part of an experiment, now the rest of the group was more wary of him. Obrom was having none of it. As usual he told the Dragon to shut up. He pointed out that he was an unwitting participant in that experiment.
Trent reaffirmed his need to kill the scientist. And the rest of the group agreed that the sooner Jak-Rath was slain, the better.
But there was another problem much more immediate. Obrom was in control of his transformation for now. But there was no guarantee that this would continue. Before things could get worse, the group intended to help the bard get a Frozen Flame so that he could revert to his Human form.
To Obtain a Frozen Flame
Obrom knowing that these three had already accomplished this task, told them that he would listen to their council. At least Trent and Jyona. Teztcal was not someone who he respected. And so he had no intention of listening to the Dragon’s advice.
The party headed back towards Demon town. The place where they had first learned to control their transformations. Jyona poked and prodded Obrom the entire way to examine him.
At the same time, Kisara finished an item she had been crafting for several days: A band of intellect. Once she donned it, her speech pattern immediately shifted. As if her mind had been permanently altered
Her weird politeness threw Jyona off. This wasn’t the young Dragon she had grown accustomed to.
Wrap Up
Obrom has become a Demon and the truth of his brand has been revealed. Will the group get a chance to stop Jak-Rath or will he continue to appear before them and mock their efforts?