Part 57: To the Heart of It All
Part 57 - To the Heart of It All.jpg)

We have thoroughly scoured most of the rooms open to us in this miserable manor, and now Glory's ex-sweetheart from her own cultist days and likely the current owner of the key we need to open Harrow's diabolical shrine door awaits in the next one.
All circumstances considered, it's probably going to take some diplomatic work from our part if we're to get ahold of it peacefully.



Man, this is going to be so awkward though.





[Marta swallows. The horrified look hasn't left her face.]

We've only ever known Glory as she is now, but it's probably a touch bewildering when your disappeared ex from years ago suddenly pops up in your room in the middle of the night looking like the vengeful spirit of an old industrial plant tried to take over her body and was only rebuked at the very last moment.





Glory harboring certain feelings of animosity towards the person who originally got her into this mess is of course pretty understandable, but the primary plan was still to see if we could convince Marta to hand over the key voluntarily, so let's try and keep the claws sheathed until we've at least had a chance to properly talk to her.



[Glory grinds her teeth, but says nothing. Eventually, she nods.]







[The razors flick out of Glory's fingertips. Her lip curls into a snarl.]

Alright alright, time out. There's obviously a ton of baggage between these two and standing here watching this conversation unfold feels all kinds of awkwardly voyeuristic, but clearly a bit of de-escalation is in order before someone ends up doing something they'll regret. Again. For like, the fifth time in the last half an hour.
One thing that stands out here is Marta's insistence about having saved Glory and all that not actually ringing especially hollow. In general Glory's conviction that this woman's some kind of a master manipulator and cold seductress is not really matching up with what we're seeing.


[The words come stammering out of her. Her eyes are fixed on Glory's razors.]


Don't often see Glory's personal feelings clouding her judgment like this, even if Marta did try to lie about some of it she's still the place's second-in-command and could potentially know something valuable.
Not that we're really buying Glory's version here anyway, we've had more than our fair share of experience dealing with crooks and liars and that doesn't seem to be the explanation for Marta's behavior. Heck, we even found some pretty concrete proof backing up our theory this time.

[Glory stares at you for a moment, naked hostility on her face. Then the razors slide back into their housings with a click.]





Hmm...

Anyone looking for that path and ending up here of all places definitely didn't get their map from a reputable establishment. It's hard to imagine anyone who has lived here for this long could genuinely believe what she's saying, but neither is anyone this convincing of an actress.
Good ol'-fashioned cult indoctrination might explain some of it, but the initiate outside also mentioned witnessing a similar scene of her internal conflict being resolved seemingly in an instant. Seems mighty unnatural, but then there are some mighty unnatural forces at work in this place.

[Marta continues, her joyful smile widening. Her voice is placid.]

[Glory grits her teeth but gives you a small nod.]





We've successfully convinced Glory to do the smart thing, but round two against this spirit clearly doing its damndest to keep Marta's mental blindfold on is going to require a bigger pair of gloves. We had best choose our words carefully if we want to make her see things for how they really are.
During our brief time here we've already gathered a fair amount of potential ammunition, but for someone who has probably never stopped to really think about it, maybe something as simple as pointing out the paradoxical structure of the cult itself could make for a free shot.




There it is again. Judging by the fact that she couldn't muster a proper counter-argument, it feels like we're off to a favorable start here.


We'll see about that. Let's see how she'll try to explain away the most obvious conflict in this supposedly perfect beauty.

[Her smile shifts into an expression of mock concern.]

Heck, where to even begin? How about...










Right, that's about all we want to hear about the subject of that shitpile and his relations with "not really children". Plus we're not finding the cracks in her conviction we were hoping for anyway. Seems like this angle of approach was a bust, better to back down before we lose our earlier momentum.


We need to point out a concrete example of these kids being forced to do something decidedly not "beautiful", something that she can't just deflect away. One example might be as close as right on the other side of the door.




Aha, these are definitely the reactions we're looking for. The spirit being forced to intervene has to mean we've gotten through to Marta herself. Hopefully if we can instill enough doubt in her mind it'll eventually help her overcome the shrine's influence.



We understand that you're fumbling pretty bad here, lady. Let's keep this going.




Guessing you haven't read the manifesto itself though? Because we did, despite it resulting in us having to fend off a two-headed man-candle from astral space who both looked and smelled like he had spent the last couple of weeks at the bottom of a real filthy deep-fat fryer.
Little wonder kids don't care much for books these days, really.




Hmm, no visible signs of pushback from the shrine anymore. Maybe we already got there, but let's have one more go at it, just to make sure.






Alright, this should do it. Time to go for the finishing blow.





Hah, we managed to convince her hard enough not only to gain access to the shrine, but to have her actually join us in our efforts. We didn't just beat the spirit, we stone cold TKO'd that fucker.


Welcome aboard on the train to Savekidsville.


Marta is a solid caster all around with delightfully devilish set of shaman skills, and also one of the surprisingly rare elven party members around in these games.



Aside from the basic conjurer Acid Bolt as her weapon and one solid summoning fetish, her magical repertoire is all Mage spells. All in all she's no MKVI and certainly wouldn't have survived a fight against the two of us had it come to that, but as an ally she can definitely carry her weight.

One of the initiates from earlier speaks up as we're leaving.


Next stop, the shri... Wait, no, there's that one door we didn't check first.

It was this one just close by to the shrine room.


...Maybe we should've come here a little earlier after all.

Damn, that's pretty cold even for you.



Very pragmatic and logical, but someone's clearly having a pretty bad time in there and if there's one thing we've found to be remarkably consistent about people regardless of factors like race and social background, it's that most of them tend to prefer their torture sessions on the shorter side if given the alternative.


Fight or no fight, we're not about to just walk away from this one.



Boy we can't leave this place behind us soon enough. Alright Marta, guess it's your show.

[The tallest of the acolytes turns to you. When he sees Marta, his expression softens.]



[The acolyte looks nonplussed.]


Damn.


[She gives him a reassuring smile, then shifts her gaze down to the bleeding man.]


"Protect", right. Clear case of self-defense, nothing to see here.

Seems like they took a quantity over quality approach which is probably where you'd still rather be when it comes to knife wounds. He'll probably be alright if we can get him out, so long as he avoids taking a dip in salt water for a bit.


[She smiles sweetly at the nearest acolyte.]



That was pretty slick, ever considered a career in shadowrunning? Our team is as solid as one could hope in a fight, but the verbal side of things tends to fall to us awfully often and it was nice to watch someone else do most of the heavy lifting for once.





[He limps a few steps forward, then looks back at Marta.]




Did a good deed, avoided having to kill anyone, and we even get a reward out of it. Not bad at all.

Before heading off to grab the stuff, we poke around the makeshift torture chamber a bit. We find nothing worth picking up, though they do have a nice tri-vid setup in here.



[She turns away from the tri-vid player and stalks past you.]


A short trip to the garage we discovered earlier and we quickly find the vent the park ranger was talking about.

As a pleasant surprise we don't find some handgun we'd just sell for a bit of cash we don't really need at this point, but rather a pile of high-quality medical supplies. Glory's carrying several Premium Medkits, but these are the first ones we've managed to get for ourselves and each is more or less a full heal thanks to our high Biotech. Very nice.

Alright door, last time you caught us by surprise, but this time we're prepared and boasting greater numbers to boot. Time to meet your carpenter.

...Somehow unsatisfying, in the end.



[Her voice goes quiet.]







The Trollkönigreich Schwarzwald or Black Forest Troll Kingdom (later to become a republic) is one of the recently established Allied German States primarily populated by orks and trolls. It has its roots in a major metahuman insurgence known as the Trollwars caused by the government's racial porgroms back in 2038.
It's also one of the so-called Awakened Lands, most of it being heavily forested and filled with all sorts of magical and awakened beings and phenomena.

[She dips a metallic fingertip into the jar and begins to stir.]

Sounds ominous. We've taken a peek into the astral a number of times recently and ended up regretting it more or less every one of those times, so we're not real big on the idea of making it any more real than it has to be.

[Glory applies a smear of ointment to her forehead. It looks like a glob of glittering white paint.]


[She shivers.]



The only reason you say that is because you were on the bench for the Sutterlin run. For all the weird and gross things we've seen in this place, it's definitely no Lightninghold.

Gotta say though, this part sounded a lot simpler back we were hashing out the plan about purifying this thing. Pictured more of a burning some magical incense sort of deal, a fancy ritual, something like that. But yeah okay, spiritual possession, that sounds undesirable.

[She touches a finger to the amulet that hangs around her neck.]


Dawdling around sure isn't going to get us the hell out of this place and back in Berlin any faster.

[Marta smiles. Her eyes glitter with anticipation.]


With all the terrible crap we've seen in this place it's more tempting than ever to make sure that bastard never lives to see another day, but it's not going to be at the expense of his current victims. Plus Marta probably wouldn't take it super well if we proposed to switch gears now.






[She jerks a thumb at Marta.]



That does make us feel a bit better about sticking to the less bloody path despite everything. Just goes to show, you never know what kind of major revelations poking around in people's gross fridges might eventually lead to. That or an exciting new disease or two.


So this is that infamous shrine that has caused everyone so much trouble. It looks... well to be honest it looks pretty much exactly how one would imagine an evil shrine to look like. Got both the creepy animal skull and the jagged stone design, not to mention someone clearly having spent enough on candles to throw a reasonable family budget into complete disarray.


So er, you always get a personal greeting from this thing or

Oh.







