Episode 7: Scientific Method, Synopsis

You began the adventure helping Professora Lydia du Valroux and her page, Phillippe, load her coach for the long journey from Charouse back to Altamira. You’d been retained by Professora Elizando de Garcia to guard the professora on her journey. To hear Lydia tell it, she’d made many enemies in her life, and they’d want for nothing better than to see her fall.

Her words turned out to be prophetic since it took a little less than half a day for the attacks to begin. At one point they were happening so frequently, you were able to get two groups to fight one another over the “privilege” of dealing with her. But after several such attacks, you were finally able to make it to Paix, and from there, aboard ship, and back to Altamira.

Finally, all that remained was to keep watch while she made her first lecture. It was to be an impromptu affair, but in your absence became quite the social event. That required moving it to La Trinidad and letting nearly everyone inside.

While it was very well attended (by everyone from Bernardo and Vivienne Cortez de Cordoba, to Don Alejandro Vasquez de Soldano and his protégée, Rosalinda, to Teresa Campos de Ramierz and her former abductor, Bishop Yago Ximinez de Rivera to the entirety of the de Silva clan) the subject matter was a bit on the “dry” side, at least for those who were not scientifically minded.

The whole event was broken up by the arrival of several cloaked figures who seemed inhumanly strong and resilient to all but your biggest weapons. Worse they seemed intent on doing the good professora harm. And while you were busy dealing with that, the Inquisition made its presence known, forcing a change of plans and a flight out of the church, to ensure the professora’s continued survival.

The most logical course of action was to get her out of town as quickly as possible. But she refused to leave without her protégée, who’d been left behind at the Queen’s Inn. When you questioned why she was so attached to an employee, she tearfully revealed Philippe was far more than that; he was the long-lost son she’d been trying so desperately to protect. And with a quick change of direction, you were headed to the inn.

And unfortunately for you, recent construction put you in a dead end with the Inquisition hot on your heels. As you waited for the inevitable fight, the mysterious rider in black with the grinning harlequin mask was there to save the day, drawing the Inquisition away and even letting you know (via a letter on a crossbow bolt) what his plan was.

A few more short stops with the locals, and finally you made it to the inn. And there you discovered the mysterious cloaked figures (even the ones you’d already dispatched) had been following you. Fortunately, timely intervention by Altamira’s local crazy man, Mad Macario kept them at bay while you learned from Gabino Colon de Soldano, that he’d already made arrangements for the professora and her boy to be spirited out of Altamria. Directions in hand, you went off to reunite mother and son. But the greeting was short-lived as the cloaked figures were relentlessly on your tails.

Fortunately, the meeting place was just a bit further on, just through an old field to the dilapidated farmhouse in the woods. But you never made it there because, as it turned out, the Explorers’ Society had been using the field to test some of their more dangerous pieces of equipment.

And worse for you, you wandered in just as the mechanism they were testing went active. What followed was a hurried, confusing, race through a maze built with invisible walls which didn’t seem to slow the figures at all.

When you finally got to the center, it seemed all was lost. The figures outnumbered you and you hadn’t time to defend both yourself and the professora and her son. But luck was with you as the Explorers testing the mechanism came to your aid, helping you understand what the items did and how you could use them.

In the end you were able to harness a weird blue energy from the sky which vaporized the mysterious figures where they stood. And as a bonus, Bernardo used his influence to protect you from the consequences of opposing the Inquisition.