FINAL INVESTIGATION

[strangerpeople]

FINAL INVESTIGATION


[Fifteen X-Passes. Six weeks. Freedom at last.



But it's not the end. Of course it's not. There are questions to answer, and souls to save. And now that the group is outside, they can see where they are.

They are inside a massive cavern, illuminated in an eerie green light, standing on a stone path. On one side is the ship-or rather, a massive, ship-shaped tangle of bloody branches, the trunk-like roots snaking out and into the river its buoyed on, as well as into the ceiling of stalactites. Said river is wine dark, but it's clearly not water. No-it is blood.

And on the other side of their little pathway? A root-encrusted palace. It sits over a labyrinthine city, bathed in emerald, and all is eerily silent save for some sounds coming from within the castle. It's clear the infestation somehow started here. And it is here that answers are likely to be found.

The doors are right in front of the group-and they are already open, covered in branches. From the outside, it seems little more than a ruin. Once everyone goes in, though?




It's even worse. The tree has taken over. Whatever lives here is no longer in charge. There's no easy way to disentangle the Qilphoth from this place. But there is life here, somehow. You can see figures entangled within the roots as you explore. And-they are still, somehow, alive. More than alive. They are beings that bleed ichor instead of blood-beings of incredible divinity and power. They are gods. And they are hostage to the tree, forever and ever, trapped in induced ennui, unless something is done.


So welcome, Strangers, to the House of Hades.]







[Once you enter, the investigation shall begin.


Good luck.]



((OoC: And here are team assignments!))

Comments

[devilmehcry]

...Yeah. I might have.


Not gonna lie, I was angry. Angry at Mundus, angry at the demons that killed my mom. But...I never meant to hurt you, Alastor.

[superstylishsquid]

I was angry at Mundus too, you know. He's the one who destroyed my original body, and then his cronies destroyed my empire of lightning. I wanted to fight alongside you, against demons like that. Monsters who preyed on the innocent, who would happily kill on a whim of their appetites.

But then you said that, and... [Something in his posture just...droops, despite him still looking tense.] I thought you considered me no different from any of them. So yeah, it hurt. There aren't many places anymore for a devil like me, not with what Mundus' idiotic war did to relations between humans and devils.