Greetings Travance,
Is it that time of the month again? It is! Annora's here for you with another update about the one known as the Employer!
So some of you may have heard last month that our attempted ritual did not go as planned. We endeavored to repeat our successes with the Aashirya ritual, and lay down a counter-ritual trap for the Employer. Unfortunately, they're smarter than the average Travancian, and anticipated this move. They laid down a counter-ritual trap of their own (a counter-counter-ritual? I don't know, too many levels of ritual here). When we attempted to complete ours, it backfired on us. So the counter-ritual trick isn't one we're going to be able to use again anytime soon. (Honestly, I can't even be mad. Turnabout is fair play, after all).
But that's okay! Because we have a new plan!! Thanks to some combined brainstorming, some revelations given by our failed ritual, and a timely comment from Nesterin, we are going to try something different this event.
In short, after the Aashirya ritual, the Employer shielded the power pathway between their rituals and their focus (the Pearl), so we can't do counter-rituals anymore. We need to focus on sneaking through the gap in their defenses instead. And also find and recover that DANG PEARL.
A rough diagram of what the current issue is, and how we want to try to bypass their defenses:
As you can see, the Employer has erected defenses for their rituals, but cannot completely close the gaps or they will block the power This gap in the shield around the pearl gives us an opportunity to act.
The current best plan we have is to perform another ritual, willingly and purposefully setting off the trap/shields. But while that happens, we have other people ready and waiting on the outside, scrying, communing, or similar methods, to follow the energy path back to its source and hopefully get a lead on the Pearl's (and the Employer's) location (and maybe fuck with some of their stuff).
I suppose you could call this ritual the "fuck around and see what happens" one. Time is of the essence, and we need to find that Pearl as soon as possible, so I'm hoping to try to to enact this plan this weekend. Aiming for the usual 11 bells on Sunday!
We'll definitely need all hands on deck for this one--ritualists, scryers, smart people with good ideas, the works.
In other ritual news, I'd still like to do the rituals at the sides the Employer has already performed theirs. These rituals have given us informative visions in the past, and might help us prepare for our Sunday ritual.
The rituals still pending are as follows:
-Sign of Nurremaralias, the Heart of the Mountain. Sign of Compassion and Stalwartness.
-Sign of Archidemus, the Kraken. Sign of Competition and Aggression.
-Sign of Ilthuene, the Great Tree. Sign of Ambition and Patience.
-Sign of Te'vash, the Harvester. Sign of Greed and Charity.
As always, my list of all the rituals we have found so far can be found on the Scholar's Table. (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ML_cHd7Fi4U6mjQebGQ9jC3Ji9d6s9to9zwcEstEB9Y/edit?usp=sharing)
In some separate but related news. Remember the stab-happy murderous halfling, Kinkle Blackblade? She's still in Travance jail, and I've confirmed with both the Magistrate and Captain of the Guard that we will be able to interrogate her this upcoming feast. The guards have been told to expect us late Friday night, at 1 bell in the morning. In order for this session to be the most effective, I'm trying to compile a list of questions we have for her in advance, so that we don't miss anything. I have a few, but I need suggestions; please help me out here!
((OOG Note: Justin has requested that questions for Kinkle be submitted in advance, so he has time to think/prep responses. So if you have questions for Kinkle, send them to him or post here!)).
As always, thank you for your time and aid,
Annora,
I will do my best, but I have important secret dryad stuff to do not very long after that.
- Midori Suarez, Daughter of Mercy