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New Eden's Underwater Biosphere 40x30 Battlemap | VTT and PDF
🕑 Added 2021-11-15 09:36:16 +0000 UTC
While visiting a seaside town, a mother is outside a popular tavern begging uncomfortable passers-by for help finding her missing daughter. If you ask her how long her daughter has been missing, she’ll explain her eight-year-old Misha has been gone for almost a week now and no one will help her get her back!
She explains that she doesn’t have very much to offer since her husband passed away, but she will do whatever she can to get her little Misha home safe. She’ll even offer to work for you for as many years as Misha is old, if that’s what it takes! She can cook and clean, and is mighty good at preparing fish seeing as her husband was a fishmonger.
If you agree to help her, she’ll break down with tears of joy, saying “bless your heart”. She’ll then explain what her daughter looks like, and that Misha was last seen in a nearby district, but she couldn’t find out any more than that. Maybe if you go there, you’ll have more success?
Should you go to the district, very few people will recognise Misha’s description. Another local woman, overhearing the conversation, will gasp in surprise, before hurrying home to her nearby house where she will peep out at you from behind her curtains.
If you approach her, she will reluctantly come out and admit she knows a bit about what happened to the child, and it’s not good. She saw an old man with a thick beard and a gold tooth offer Misha sweets, before leading the child away. He was in a threadbare grey cloak, and had a large pipe between his teeth. She had assumed the man was her grandfather!
Should you ask around for a man of that description, some of the locals will say it’s a wizard from the Wizard’s Academy, named Bartle. They’ll then give you directions to go to that area.
Once inside the academy, the friendly staff there happily direct you to his rooms, saying he doesn’t often get visitors! However, once you find his room, the door is unlocked and slightly open.
Inside his room you’ll find notes scattered about, mentioning something called New Eden again and again. He writes about his struggle to find “the perfect subjects” or “adequate provisions”, and there is a location marked on the map. An underwater location.
Within a container on his desk are also some pearls of breathing.
If you go to the underwater location, you’ll find a great glasshouse beneath the waves. Inside it is a forest of trees and bushes heavy with fruit, and a fresh flowing stream filled with fish. Above the entrance is a plaque that reads New Eden.
Should you go inside, you’ll find Misha, along with several other boys and girls about eight years old. They're laughing and playing around happily, throwing fruit at one another. But when they see you they’ll scream and draw back, calling for “Papa Bartle”.
The old wizard will appear, bursting forth from another part of the room with his sleeves and robe rolled up to reveal long socks on hairy, knobbly legs.
“What?! Who are you?!” He’ll say, absolutely dumbfounded that other adults are down here. Then he’ll try to usher you to the side, so as to not “ruin the experiment”. If you refuse to come with him, he’ll sigh and demand to know what you’re doing down there.
If you explain that you’re looking for Misha, he will stroke his beard and nod thoughtfully. He’ll ask that, have you considered that, while Misha could be returned to the surface world, should you? He’ll then explain the nature of his experiment, that he wanted to see if children, eight-year-olds, who are still so young to be innocent, would be inherently sinful if separated from society and raised away from its corrupt influence.
Down here, Bartle explains, the children don’t want for anything. There’s replenishing fruits and nuts on the trees, fresh water and fish, magical meat, firewood and flintstones—food far nicer than their poor parents could ever provide on the surface. And the temperature is carefully controlled, so as to be perfect without clothing (hence the reason he’s half naked).
Should you insist on taking Misha home, he’ll sigh and shake his head, saying he hoped it wouldn’t come to this but he cannot let Misha leave. She’s the perfect subject, you see, and needs to stay in New Eden.
He will then begin throwing strange magic spells at you.
