The Field Laboratory of the Gorlognal Academy

It had been a few years since the Gorlognal Academy ventured beyond the Gaaglin Swamp, but in mid Roarkian of the year 681 after the Coming of Estarra they not only visited the Basin of Life, they were there to make quite a startling announcement – they were recruiting research assistants.

Research Assistant Phuslik Meshglog was in the middle of posting recruitment notices around the Aetherplex when she decided that the best location for the Academy’s posters was precisely where the Fellowship of the Roots had already hung up theirs. When the Fellowship’s notices were removed and replaced, Pachidrui Etloo raised the alarm.

What followed was an extended confrontation that escalated swiftly through the ranks of the Gorlognal Academy – starting from Research Assistant Phuslik, who sent for Assistant Professor Quamgenyra Slaur, who then sent for Professor Feenol Leihm, who in turn sent for Chancellor Phelbin Gorlogg himself, each arrival more senior and more irritable than the last.

The Fellowship was not to be outdone and quickly swelled in numbers with the arrival of Naesan Sweetfur, the fierce Thes ‘Bonegrinder’ Erurozea, Tikki, Valinea, Huskii Myeras, Esei Shee-Slaugh, Qoivhae Vivalde, Anorak, and even the leader – Nimuire Duskbloom herself. The peaceful nature of the Aetherplex, as Esei drily noted, at least prevented the encounter from becoming violent – much to Thes’s evident disappointment.

The Academy’s position, delivered with the full condescension of an institution that considered itself the foremost centre of learning in the world, was that the Fellowship had a history of recklessness with the consequences of their work. The Fellowship likewise had much to say about the Academy’s own methodology. They argued about the events in the village of Paavik, the work in the Namiraa Trench, the research in Muhanlesh Caverns, and even the Silverfur twins.

It was not until Chancellor Gorlogg spoke up that the argument over posters wound down enough for reasonable discourse to resume. The Academy had data that the Fellowship did not. Their field research, conducted in and around the Gaaglin Swamp, had yielded a conclusion that contradicted what the Fellowship believed about the events surrounding the Eater of Flesh and Earth. During the great conflict over the Gaaglin Swamp – during the empowerment of the Eater and the battle that followed – something else had been at work.

The Eater had not been empowered in the way everyone had believed. It had been drained. And the Academy suspected whatever had done the draining was no force any of them had yet named. Phelbin did not offer to work together with the Fellowship – not until, in his words, the Fellowship could demonstrate its innocence in the matter.

“Something is very wrong in the Basin of Life and we will get to the bottom of it”, he was heard saying before he stormed off back to the Academy.

After the mugwumps departed, their recruitment posters were finally read in full: the Gorlognal Academy’s Field Laboratory, now established in the Gaaglin Swamp but outside the Academy itself, was open to researchers who wished to contribute to their work, provided they were not active members of the Fellowship of the Roots.

The Fellowship discussed these revelations long after the Academy had gone. Esei in particular was openly suspicious of their timing, questioning why they had waited so long to share this information if they had it. Tikki, too, urged caution as the Academy was not trustworthy simply because they arrived with alarming intelligence. Even so, Valinea proposed that a secret third party might be at the heart of things and that it was possible that neither the Fellowship nor the Academy was seeing the full picture. Whichever way the wind would end up blowing, Naesan was sure that the dreams did not lie, and that something was indeed very wrong and that his exhaustion was only deepening.

Beyond the Scorpion’s Tail, deep in the Gaaglin Swamp, the first to cross the vibrational field protecting the field laboratory and begin research was Qoivhae Vivalde of New Celest. Who else will join the research efforts of the mysterious Academy and what are they working on exactly?