September 2024 “Fragments of Tomorrow Recap
September’s gather came on the heels of an intense Honor’s Fall, presenting the town with several major problems after the dust settled. With the High Lord Executioner Essex Anastasia gone, the question on everyone’s mind is just who would rule the town. Without the Anastasias in power to uphold the laws of Requiem, what would that mean for those laws and for unifying the Families to keep the peace?
And then there is the Gravemind.
Requiem’s morgue and the attached Gravemind was just about destroyed by a catastrophic explosion during a confrontation inside the Mortis. During the altercation, family head Keres Molon died in the fiery eruption, causing liquid matter spewed up from the Mortis above ground. The ensuing disaster creating a Near Grave of molten necrotic matter that is toxic to all forms of life and highly irradiated. The Near Grave soon began sending out waves of powerful zed, each of them spreading rad poisoning and devastation in their wake.
The people of Requiem split their attention to all the tasks needed to clean up the town in the wake of Honor’s Fall. While many discussed how to address the political vacuum in the town, others tackled researching just how to clean up the toxic Near Grave and re-establish a functional morgue in the town. The researchers discovered mysterious black roses that, once fed, sprouted out of people’s bodies and could protect individuals from the Near Grave’s toxicity. Utilizing the roses, the researchers got into the destroyed morgue, all the while being bombarded with Compulsions of intense emotions of fear, sorrow, and other negative impressions.
The next day the town was bombarded by powerful zed as well as farmers from the Fold who, angry at the disruption of their lives by the recent politics, came to town to take on Requiem for their choices. They also talked about whole families and groups hearing grave whispers and disappearing. Meanwhile shadowy folk drew the researchers into the Near Grave, leading to the town organizing a group who would head into the morgue and try to seal off the damage in the local Mortis. Armed with more roses and a crew of fighters outside to take on the irradiated zed, the team inside the morgue sacrificed four of their own while fighting to heal the Mortis from the inside. The procedure ended with a huge portion of the radiation sealed away from the Mortis, a huge step towards healing the local gravemind and setting up the possibility of sinking a new morgue.
As the town took a deep breath at the successful Mortis mission, others kept their roses close, knowing the battle for (or against?) the Requiem Mortis was far from over. Because the radiation, while greatly reduced, is still leaking into the local Mortis, the families of the Fold are still sleepwalking off into the dark, and the Mortis is still presenting an imminent danger to the town. And all of this in the face of the next gather’s annual tradition: the Feast of Flesh. But without the power structure in Requiem solidified yet and nobody having seen Zodiac in a long time, what will the Feast of Flesh look like in this disruptive time? Only the come of the next gather will show just how many pounds of flesh it will take to heal Requiem once again.