[Part of the Party Time journal]
While the others are clearing the docks, Juris decides to head to Lord Strangford's house at Charhollow to follow up on his cult connections and runs into Matt taking care of the butcher's death dogs. Since this is the first time he's encountering Matt I can finally reveal the Matt is a demon. Yep, "Matt Demon". The cringe almost kills Juris IRL but he rolls a 6 to not die. LOL.
Anyway, Matt says the dog's owners - Coran and the other butchers have been drafted into the army, while Adda and the Inkrakes (journalists) were arrested and taken to Ironhook for siding with Strangford. For some coin Matt reveals he's a demon that eats "trade", so he has no quarrel with anyone. He also tells Juris where to find the door his ancient key will open - in the tunnels far beneath the Shield of Dawn district!
Juris thanks him for the into and continues to Strangford manor where he neutralizes and recruits a hull and dodges a trap before finding correspondence that the cult has a fall back plan to nuke the city via luring a leviathan from the ocean with "targeting" rituals. Along with a handy map of where these sites are (some are outside the barrier), he recognizes the handwriting and signature to be Quellyn's - his teacher whom he hasn't seen in years.
As one of the ritual spots is nearby, Juris pays it a visit and sees that its on a barge in the middle of the canal which he boards and encounters cultists led by priestess Aranna. Thanks to good dicing, Aranna spills the beans that the clan hopes to revive the Burned King to defeat the Immortal Emperor and reveals Quellyn is their leader and is in one of the exterior sites. Thanks to Quellyn's desire to recruit Juris, Aranna lets him go and once he is safely back on shore he lightning bolts the barge until it sinks, killing all but Aranna who gets away.
Afterwards he meets up with the others back at base and tells them of his findings and they agree that taking out all the ritual sites is of high priority. While they others head out to do just that (with NPCs Eisele the last gondolier and her new student Jennifer taking care of the one in the bank at the docks), Juris follows Matt's instructions and heads down beneath the district to open an ancient door beyond which he battles a hungry Glazerbu looking like demon and wins (at the cost of a hull bodyguard). Beyond it he finds an ancient box with a broken stag horn within, and following the voice in his head, jams the horn into his own skull.
This is all because it ticks off things on his "dream" sheet, and his visions - guided by what looks like a gigantic Norweigan forest cat - rewards him with some special abilities. He can now eat freshly killed sentient beings to reduce stress (in fact, he has to as he is now addicted to it or suffers stress penalties) and also gains the "Lord of Nature" skill in which he can command low intelligence fauna and flora to do his bidding!
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