MFP 8: "Sphere 10 Destroyed?"

Imported from Medium.com

Day 35, 10:00pm —

Sleeping. Victoria on watch. A baby starts crying in the distant field.

Day 36, 1:00am —

Feyrien on watch. Baby stops crying, very suddenly. Feyrien enters the fields to investigate and gets caught in a caltrop trap. Bandits immediately rise out of the grass and fire their shortbows. More bandits in the distance, from the direction of the baby cries, follow. Feyrien whistles, waking Stile and Victoria. Stile wakes up Gorthron, who exits the wagon to hunt the bandits. Victoria goes unconscious after taking a couple arrows from the bandits when she started firing on them. Feyrien makes it safely back to the wagon and the bandits run into the night.

Gorthron has an argument with Feyrien, and the rest of the Motherfuckers, about safety and trust and warning each other (seemingly caused by PTSD from the similar situation where they lost Calypso and Pandorog).

Meanwhile, Zaq picks up a homeless man on the side of the road named Seth Blue, who sounds really old but is actually in his 30s. He gives out hard candies and acts generally strange. Seth interrupts the argument by saying he’s trying to get to the crossroads ahead where there’s an abandoned village’s ruins that’s rumored to have a small commune developing.

Seth Blue (peasant), a 30-year-old homeless man in worn clothes.

AC 10, HP 4/4, ATK 1 fist +0 (1), MV near, AL N, LV 1

2:00am —

Back to sleep. Gorthron on watch.

4:00am —

Stile on watch. Seth says, “Gonna kill em all” in his sleep. Stile takes the tin, elephant-decorated box that is Seth’s only possession and pees in it, pouring the pee out in the dirt so now Seth’s tin box smells like piss.

6:00am —

Feyrien on watch. She starts carving her boar bones. Seth says, “I love you guys” in his sleep.

8:00am —

Zaq on watch.

Zaq the Sophist (bandit), an elderly nudist wearing only a towel. 734g.

AC 10, HP 4/4, ATK 1 dagger +1 (1d4), MV near, S+1, I-1, Ch-1, AL C, LV 1

Ambush. Deal an extra die of damage when undetected.

10:00am —

The Motherfuckers wake up to see Zaq and Seth smoking Seth’s remaining tobacco in a small carved pipe. They continue traveling.

1:00pm —

A giant statue of an elf meditating on the side of the road. A suspicious and incredibly annoying elf wearing white robes named “Wizard” meditates below the statue in front of an orb.

He reads from some sort of script and casually predicts lightning will strike the road at 3:15pm, as well as four sheep crossing the road.

Victoria tries to attack “Wizard” but their weapons bounce off of his skin. He grips their head like a basketball and kills Victoria for a moment. Feyrien heals them back up.

“Wizard” gives the Motherfuckers the orb and says to keep it safe.

2:00pm —

Continue traveling. Storm clouds. Rain.

3:15pm —

Lightning strikes a large tree near the road, and sheep cross the road. The Motherfuckers haze Seth by inducting him as “part of the gang” when in reality they use him as a guinea pig to experiment with their magical orb.

They abandon the orb, thinking its too suspicious.

“Wizard” sneaks out of the grass, grabs the orb, waves at the Motherfuckers, and disappears back into the grass. They continue traveling.

5:00pm —

The orb is in the middle of the road in front of Witch Asteroid. The party avoids the orb and shoots arrows at it. Part of it explodes and smokes. Seth recovers the pieces and shows metal and exposed wire underneath. Feyrien hears two unfamiliar voices in Sylvan saying, “Sphere 10 has been destroyed?” and “Affirmative” in crackling radio static from inside the orb. Feyrien throws bones and communicates with her god. They continue traveling.

10:00pm —

The outer edges of the village’s ruins approach. A light at the center and smoke rising… Somebody’s already there…