Shrine Keeper Quest Pt 5: Turn 2 (Patreon)

[X] Plan: Restoration and Exploration

-[X] Dr. Hurriyeh

--[X] Familiarize Yourself with the Shrine

-- [X] Repair Central Pagoda

--[X] Reconsecrate the Grounds

--[X] Train (Yaji)

--- [X] Protective Magicks

-- [X] Explore Location

--- [X] Village of Pavva-Ganuk

-[X] Yaji

-- [X] Check on the Shrine-Herd

(((())))

Your exploration of the Shrine was interesting. As you had guessed, much of it was in disrepair. The litheochamber needed new stone plating because the lack of proper oiling had resulted in it cracking and had a resonant reader that was over fifty years out of date, the sacred pool was polluted and dirty thanks to a toad spirit making it their dumping ground, the dance floor had patches of floor that were rotting through, and at least three lesser shrines had had their treasure stolen: you were missing a feather said to belong to a magical waterfowl that carried with it a gold coin that bought great fortune in the form of precious metals and gems, an immaculate dragon-brooch carved from jade that had once belonged to a famous legal scholar, and a las-pistol said to be older than Tekket civilization.

You would need to track those down: if word got out that your shrine had outright LOST some of its sacred treasures, even more minor ones, it would take a horrific hit to its credibility. There was also the fact that with those treasures gone, the spirits associated with them were weakened: the waterfowl spirits once glowing feathers had returned to a drab grey and its coin had begun to tarnish, the spirit that had once been tied to the brooch had been reduced to a tiny serpent that could barely argue against a traffic citation, let alone any legal dispute of worth, and the spirit that the lasgun belonged to had faded entirely, going dormant.

You also visit the Shrine-Herds with Yaji, the latter using it as an excuse to check on the health of the Ogre Beetles, whose grazelands consist of the upper tusks, the long fields dotted with pylons containing gravitic fencing technology. The news isn’t good: the massive insectile beasts are apparently sluggish and not eating well from their feed troughs, and even having trouble flying. Worse, a few of their eggs seem to be rotten. Yaji isn’t sure what the cause is: the malady isn’t spiritual in nature. He might suspect the feed, but they’ve been using the same feed for months beforehand without issue. Thankfully, the gravitic fence is working perfectly: they are perhaps due for a tune-up, but Yaji noted no significant fluctuations. The Shrine also possesses a garden: you were only able to visit it briefly, but it seemed to be where all the plant vita and floral spirits congregated.

Still, this just means you have your work cut out for you. Over the course of the week, you begin reconsecrating the grounds and repairing the central pagoda, replacing all the sacred ropes that had long since frayed and performing the sprinkling of water and ground up purified cursite as you, facility by facility, restoring at least some of its spiritual equilibrium. The Waterfowls coat regains a bit of its its luster, the toad spirit befouling the sacred pool stops producing filth, and those spirits already generally healthy find themselves more active, a layer of fatigue wiped away, resulting in you receiving a bit of help with pagoda repair by a fairly amicable hill giant composed of boulders half-way through that was pleased to no longer be as sleepy.

While the reconsecration is going on, you take the opportunity to train Yaji in the same sort of protective rituals you had learned. You skip advanced warding: instead, your lessons focused more on the same sort of purification rituals you were already utilizing, showing your wide eyed apprentice how to perform consecrations on their own.

To Yaji’s credit, he is a fast learner, and by the end of the week you let him reconsecrate the Shrine’s gardens on his own. Who knows: by the time all is said and done, he might be able to protect this Shrine without you.

Yaji’s skill at protective magic has advanced to C-! 0/4 progress to C!

(((())))

In the middle of this, you had a most fascinating experience. You had decided to, while Yaji played with those awful, awful beetles, visit the village and introduce yourself: after all, presumably you’d be solving just as many problems here as back at the Shrine, once things had settled down.

Walking to the edge of town, you strolled onto it’s streets, abuzz with activity. Walking down the ivory cobbles, it hadn’t taken them long to spot you. It took them even less time to start whispering.

Some were rather derogatory. “What the zog is one of them bastards doing here?” Came a voice belonging to a hobbgrot who smelled like a pharmacist, who had been engaged in a conversation with a television unit a moment ago.

Others, most, were rather more neutral. “Whose that?” “I’dunno, looks like a devil.” “What’s a devil?” “What do you mean what’s a devil?!” Was the voice of a quintet of spirits resembling empty yet human-proportioned clothes, living ensembles located in what appeared to be a small public park, at a bench, playing cards with an electrobandit.

Others were more unfortunate. “Oooooh, they look dangerous~” “ I gotta admit, I like me a sharp dressed humanoid.” You generally avoided your best to ignore comments like these: the pair that had said it likely didn’t realize they were in earshot, considering they had spotted you from behind a pane of glass: a beauticians parlor with a window facing mainstreet.

You had continued until you had reached the market, where you walked among the stalls as people hawked food, lines forming. The Directorate didn’t use money, and it wasn’t but a few hours trip to the Orbital City above them, but most of it’s citizens attempted to eat local.

Grabbing a small basket, you began filling it with different items, all either sourced from the nearby jungle or different parts of Gajaliath: meats such as smoked beetle from the lesser spinal rainforest, roasting beefs you typically constructed sandwiches out of reared from artificial grazeland constructed on the next tusk over, ethically sourced lizard tail from snot-bog’s no-kill slime-gator sanctuary farm, some wild game hunted from Bright Falls Forest surrounding Lake Cauldron, and then you move to the veggies.

One can learn quite a bit from a community based on it’s diets: the selection is considerably less varied in this category. Some snap-cabbages grown from various local and community gardens. Fresh fruit plucked from the jungle. Rice that was grown on the mountain-side.

And of course, one had the various insect products. Not only honey, and not only things produced by bees: there was also honeycomb, royal jelly, ambergeisten, ant nectar, wasp pheromones, cast of chitin harder than steel, much of it produced by a location referred to by the labels as the Apiaplex, located just off the tusk on a sheer vertical surface underneath Gaja’s Eye.

All this in your basket, and you approached one of the counters set up to help process the ebb and flow of goods into and out of the market, manned by a relaxed looking Tekket in dark glasses and a floral patterned shirt, leaning back in his chair. “Greetings and salutations!” You said, leaning forward, setting your basket down. “I wish to take these home to consume!” True, as a daemonic entity you actually derived no value from food except for taste, but it was still a useful information gathering technique, and while food that wasn’t cursite didn’t satiate you, well. As mentioned, taste.

“No problem,” The Tekket said, stretching out before leaning forward, quickly punching in the item codes for the items in your basket to document their removal. Most likely the glasses contained an AR scanner to save time and ensure he didn’t have to unpack every item. “Allllrighty, good to go. Don’t recognize you: you a visitor?” He asked curiously.

“In a sense,” You noted, grabbing a wyldfruit and taking a bite, savoring the sweet, rich flavors. “I’m the temporary Shrine-Keeper that’s been assigned to this village,” You admitted, causing the market vendors eyes to widen.

“Oh, you’re Kaj’s fill-in!” They said, grinning. “I was wondering when they’d get somebody out here. The names Picault,” The vendor continued with a nod, introducing themselves.

“Dr. Hurriyeh,” You responded in turn, giving a small bow. “Charmed. I don’t suppose you could give me the old run down of Pavva-Ganuk, from a native to an outsider wanting to make a good impression.”

“Not a native: born on Luna, actually. Moved here about fifteen years ago,” Picault admitted. “Anyways, Pavva-Ganuk’s a pretty quiet place most of the time: the locals are friendly, the streets are safe, and the spirits are usually happy, or at least used to be.”

“Used to be?” You inquired. That was interesting: it implied that things hadn’t been going so well. Picault frowned.

“Yeah. Nothing too bad yet: some Shrines in Pavva-Ganuk are off-line, meaning a lot of the village spirits are a bit more hungry and thus crotchety than usual, like the suits,” He noted: presumably the living ensembles you had seen. “Of course, it gets worse the further out you get: some of the people near Cauldron Lake says the spirits are freaked out.”

…That was concerning, especially since, while technically in your jurisdiction, wyld shrines and their general maintenance are something DRUIDS are supposed to handle. You’d need to go out and start checking them, most likely: either the druids were being lax, or something was wrong. “Joy,” you said dryly. “Can’t wait to spend next week tromping through the jungle.” You gave a hum. “Any chance you could tell me what the local hot spots are like?”

“Well, as far as fun goes, the village does have an arcade,” He noted, and you felt a brief moment of joy. “Its down the street: entirely automated. There also used to be a town cybersquare, but then the person who maintained the data-hub left town,” He said, a note of annoyance creeping into his voice. “You want food, obviously you come here to the marketplace,” He wryly continued. “But there’s also the community diner if you want something fresh cooked by someone else. There’s a library riiiiight…there,” He said, pointing down the street, to particular pagoda whose location you marked. “It’s also where town hall can be found. After that, there’s the community garden, Urbeks Clinic- They do vet stuff and also most sentients that aren’t Tekket,” They paused. “For Tekket you kinda have to go out of town: five minutes by hover-tram to reach the Apiaplex, which has its own hospital. It’s also where most of the honey is produced. And-”

It continued much like that for over an hour. It seemed that you had made a very chatty friend.

Results:

Shrine reconsecrated and pagoda restored!

Shrine-Herd in poor health.

Multiple locations discovered.

Discovered the character Picault and gained their Contact Information.

By cultivating a relationship with a character and securing their Contact Information, it is possible to secure the permanent use of their skills and talents to aid both yourself, the Shrine, and the village as a whole, simplifying your workload and giving you more assets to identify and solve problems.

Picault

Profession: Market Vendor

Body: ???

Mind: ???

Spirit: ???

Skills:

Rumor-mongering: D+ to B: This character talks with a great many people every day. Presumably they hear a lot.

Acquisition: D+ to B: This character helps run a market. He thus hopefully is good at setting up supply lines and acquiring things, though you have no idea the scope of his resources.

Further, your exploration of the town has given you access to the following rumors:

The Anomaly at Cauldron Lake: Spirits in the vicinity of Cauldron Lake have begun acting up: no one has been hurt yet, but hikers, naturalists, and others have reported being attacked by angry wither-spirits.

The Creekside Cult: A few wanderers had reported seeing masked figures in the woods and trees carved with strange sigils near the River Pavva: the recreation you saw was a more obscure version of the wheel of chaos within a simple rendition of some sort of insect.

Missing Ectologist: A local hobbgrot has gone missing: a Ghost Busta by the name of Barney Zapblaster. No one has seen them in three weeks, apparently.

Rash of Thefts: Apparently, the village had been struck by a case of burglaries: most were blaming the towns local Electrobandit, Carnegie, a vita with a chequered past and a habit of kleptomania.

Pavva-Ganuk Schoolhouse Curses: The local school-house was supposedly haunted by a malevolent spirit that had taken up residence, attacking any students who remained after dark, chasing them away.

Note that not all rumors are based in truth, nor do all of them hide any sharp secret. Some are wrong, either lies or mutated gossip.

Once more, you have five actions for yourself and one for Yaji.

SUGGESTED ACTION LIST

[ ] Clean the Sacred Pool: The toad spirit that had befouled it was no longer doing so, but that didn’t get rid of the existing filth. The Pool would need to be cleansed both ritually and physically to restore the clear, rejuvenating waters.

[ ] Order Sacred Stone: The Litheochamber needed repair, and that would require securing a shipment of oraclestone, a sizeable one. CAN SPEND AN EXTRA AP TO PURCHASE OATHSTONE. Repeatable.

[ ] Call the Vet: If it wasn’t their feed, Yaji was stumped. He had suggested calling in professional help: there was a clinic in town that treated most complex organisms. Presumably they could help.

[ ] Security Review: You had three missing sacred treasures that needed to be found. The shrine did have security cameras: presumably you could review them to start your investigation.

[ ] Market Stall Rumor Mill: Picault was happy there was a Shrine-Keeper in town: you could potentially recruit him to send you information.

[ ] Market Stall Supply Line: Picault received shipments from abroad every week and had contacts from all over the region: if there was an item you wanted the market to start stocking, he was the person to talk to.

-[ ] Write in an item: Picault will attempt to create a supply line and start handing it out in his market. Note that the harder an item is to acquire, the more likely it will require multiple AP.

[ ] Pursue Rumor: If you had enough detail about the area, you might consider pursuing one of the rumors.

-[ ] Select a Rumor to investigate.

[ ] Awaken Magg: The serpent spirit needed to be re-awoken if it was to fulfill its duties as Guardian, most likely through music and sustained offerings.

[ ] Construct Dark Portal: Really, no portal? This wasn't the 4200's any more: you'd have to spend some time constructing it, but there was no excuse for your shrine to not have one installed.

[ ] Order Bulk Cursite: You had a colleague on Naklis who worked in cursite processing. They could, if you wish, send you large amounts of cursite, purified or unpurified, for whatever purpose you might have.

-[ ] Specify: Purified or Raw Cursite. Former option will result in a slightly smaller delivery due to relative scarceness.

[ ] Train: A teachers work was never done. You could either tutor Yaji or else pursue self-improvement of your own.

-[ ] Specify skill and intended recipient: note that possessing a tutor with high ranks in a skill as well as high Education and Mind stats improves the result.

[ ] Explore Location: Gajaliath had numerous locations of interest: the Village of Pavva-Ganuk, Cauldron Lake, Djerd. Each with its own spirits and shrines, all likely requiring tending.

-[ ] Specify location. I'm not gonna draw up an entire list: if you've seen it in text, you can visit. NOTE: You can also use this location to visit specific locations at your shrine to familiarize yourself with the spirits.

[ ] Write In