Professor Araldo Rinaldi from the college of the stars is seeking people adventurers willing to go on a long trip to a city called Lasra somewhere in the desert to help him with his research on foreign gods. Travel expenses and potions up to a limit of two class B will be covered, with pay of 50R on return with valuable information.
Hugh_Branch (Tom), Rodrigo_Robertson (Alex), Toli_Nutt (Chaos)
A few days into the journey back Hugh wakes Rodrigo at some point in the middle of his watch indicating his desire to abandon Toli in the desert for the scar (twice). Superposition Rodrigo either accepts and leaves with Hugh or argues against it for long enough that Hugh gives up and leaves without him.
On his own Hugh has a relatively easy trip home since when he doesn’t need to lead people who don’t understand geometry properly the route is massively, massively shorter.
Toli abandoned in the desert is forced to wander until his supplies run out, completely lost. When stuck in this terrible situation he calls upon the power of the tender to help him, from the last tiniest dregs of water in his last waterskin grows a small bush upon which a single fruit ripens each day which each day sustains him until the next. Even with this blessing it is not a pleasant trip as he eventually finds himself stumbling into the Serradic Empire somewhere northwest of Tovis. On leaving the desert the plant stops fruiting and begins to wilt. From there he has a long but moderately well travelled trip back to Acryn.
Rodrigo makes his way home by one of those two routes his skills at survival helping to a level approximately equal to his presence putting a burden on supplies (he would moderately slow Hugh’s route or moderately speed Toli’s route but not make either of them significantly more pleasant apart from as company).
Hugh arranges a safehouse with the East Empire company before trying to convince Marian Terrec to shelter him (to be worked out between the players in question) if rejected he briefly steps out of reality and makes a run for it.
Eventually the returned stories and statue are sufficient that the professor pays everyone 9 Riel for the effort.
On closer inspection during the long and arduous trip back the knife that you experimentally dipped into the bowl of shadows has taken on something of a relationship to Sinna. This could either be used in the future to in some way try to forge a true connection to him (taking some form of action on a LARP) or simply solidified into a backdoor into his power granting the use of a fixed single level 1/2 miracle once per encounter.
If he wants to have repotted it into something actually sensible to grow a plant in rather than an empty waterskin, it the small bush that provided for him in the desert. Whether it will do anything interesting in future is unclear but it does feel faintly divine relating to the tender.
9 Riel
Having passed through the prism and had an element of yourself destroyed whilst you were seperated you have had your relationship to Xavier removed. On the positive side that means you no longer remember being the Great One, on the negative side those elements of your history where you closely interacted with Xavier were best explained as the implants of the great one as excuses for the other selves to have his power so those are gone too. Since you no longer have any connection to Xavier your Xavier related skills will start fading, starting with the highest level, at the rate of 1/adventure unless you find a way to re-establish a relationship to Xavier as your god (as a young god that may well be harder than it could be if you weren’t) (xp can be moved to other skills).
You have offended Sinna the Shadow of Dusk, master of secrets and now secrets are effectively forbidden to you. Any new secret that you learn from this point forward will slip your mind completely at the end of the encounter where you discover it (something qualifies as a secret if were an unrelated but suspiciously interested stranger in a pub to ask about it you would find yourself unwilling to share). As soon as it is reminded to you to a degree that would make the gist of it obvious to everyone nearby you can remember everything about it, though so long as it still meets the criteria you will once again slip your mind at the end of the encounter.
On top of any other reputation issues you may be suffering from the Cleansing Tide has been used as the villain part in a good number of sermons meant to illustrate the steadfast caring nature of the Tender being shown as fickle and uncaring in comparison.
9 Riel
Nothing metaphysically exciting, although given what metaphysically exciting looks like for Hugh this could well be a good thing.
9 Riel