vault backup: 2025-12-03 12:18:53

.obsidian/workspace.json

@@ -11,10 +11,14 @@
             "id": "6e169ae6a9aed54f",
             "type": "leaf",
             "state": {
-              "type": "graph",
+              "type": "markdown",
-              "state": {},
+              "state": {
-              "icon": "lucide-git-fork",
+                "file": "AndrewNotes/Avalon/02_Sessions/session_5.md",
-              "title": "Graph view"
+                "mode": "source",
+                "source": true
+              },
+              "icon": "lucide-file",
+              "title": "session_5"
             }
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@@ -190,6 +194,7 @@
   "active": "6e169ae6a9aed54f",
   "lastOpenFiles": [
     "AndrewNotes/Avalon/02_Sessions/session 4.md",
+    "AndrewNotes/Avalon/02_Sessions/session_5.md",
     "Untitled.md"
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 }

AndrewNotes/Avalon/02_Sessions/session 4.md

@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ type: session
 session_number: 4
 date: 2025-11-26
 arc: leyline
-status: planned
+status: run
 ---
 # The Descent
 > [!quote] **READ ALOUD – Elias leaves**

AndrewNotes/Avalon/02_Sessions/session_5.md

@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+---
+campaign: Avalon Adventuring Academy
+type: session
+session_number: 5
+date: 2025-11-26
+arc: leyline
+status: planned
+---
+# Cold Open
+>[!quote] Root Oversight Array- Location Classified
+>We start somewhere else, while you are all discussing what happened at B2 with Ellias
+> The room is all stone, and steel, and light. 
+> In the center, is a platform which holds a wide, shallow basin. It is filled with a liquid- or is it light, that seems to map out a ghostly diagram of the leyline network: bright trunks, branching roots, pulsing nodes.
+> Hooded technicians in plain grey robes move between pillars, checking readings, murmuring quietly. The whole place hums with an all to familiar heartbeat- but here, amplified one hundred fold- the room throbs. Each beat knocks dust from the walls and gravel from the roof.
+> **A BEAT**
+> One of the technicians, younger, nervous, stiffens. The crystal pillar in front of him flickers, then flashes an angry red.
+> He frantically taps the runes. "Why would delta three be spiking at this hour?"
+> A label resolves on the pillar: "AVL-ACAD / B2 - DIST. JUNCTION- ATHLETIC GRID"
+
+Let them sit with that for a moment- they need to realize that's them.
+
+>[!quote] Enter D'Serris
+>A figure at the far end of the room looks up from the basin. Older, sharp features, with white streaks in his hair. His robe is more formal than the others. His belt bears an engraving- K. D'Serris. Root Oversight.
+> He walks over, staff ticking against the stone. 
+> He eyes up the pillar, then the basin. One thin branch flares within. A cluster of points around it, representing your campus, jitter, before stabilizing.
+> "B2 again?"
+> The tech nods- gulping. "Yes sir. Load divergense from A series root. It... uh.. it looks liek locl intervention. Manual."
+> D'Serris: "Maintenance?"
+> Tech: "No scheduled work orders."
+> D'Serris is lost in throught for a moment- "Nobody under thirty moves this recklessly." 
+> Before the tech can respond- the pillars light **spikes**. The label flashes from amber to a hard red. In the basin, the representation B2 swells- an overbright node connected to four lines- then one of those lines implodes- leaving only a cracked, dead segment. 
+> The hum in the room stutters. For a heartbeat, the entire network map freezes.
+> Crystals up and down the walls flicker. Technicans grab pillars, steadying themselves as the floor quakes.
+> Across half a dozen pillars, the same message flashes in harsh red script: 
+> **ROUTE OVERSIGHT: LOST. C-LINE DISCONNECTED. FAILSAFE UNAVAILABLE.**
+> The tech panics: "Sir! B2! It's just- I don't know! It's just *GONE*! Output line 4 shows no physical connections. Root oversight for that segment just dropped. Whatever's riding the C-series over there, we... we can't see it anymore."
+> D'Serris exhales through gritted teeth. 
+> "Of Course it's the academy." He taps his staff against the stone. In the basin, the map shifts, and zooms out. The Avalon node is just one of many sprinkled along a massive glowing trunk that runs under the whole region, off the edge of the projection. 
+> "They built that school on a vein and let children play with the taps. This was always bound to happen."
+> "The tech asks: "What shoudl we do? Re=route? Cut the whole site?"
+> "Can't.". He gestures at a cluster of distant nodes linekd to the same trunk. "Too much weight on that line. You cut Avalon, you destabilize everything from here to the capital."
+> **Beat**
+> Besides, the root seems to like them.
+> He waves a hand; the view zooms in just a bit more, enough to show **three tiny motes** near the Avalon node, pulsing slightly out of sync with everything else.
+> “Pattern anomalies,” the tech reads off. “Three signature clusters. Adolescent. High contact with the B-series.”
+>D’Serris’ mouth tightens.  
+>“Of course. We sever the watcher and the first thing the root does is mark new favorites. It’s learning.”
+>A secondary crystal on a nearby stand starts chiming – a **comm node**. The tech glances at the label.
+>“Incoming link from AVL-ACAD administration. ID… Larkvale.”
+>“Put him through.”
+>A hovering image flickers into being above the comm crystal: Larkvale, in his office, looking furious and sleep-deprived.
+> “Overseer,” Larkvale says, skipping pleasantries. “Your pet tap just tried to kill my field and half my grid. I have students reporting visions, three systems down, and a very irate Headmaster from across town asking if our little ‘pilot program’ is going to take his network with it.”
+> D’Serris’ expression doesn’t change.  
+> “Good morning to you too, Aldren.”
+> Larkvale: “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend this is routine. I just lost whatever miserable little safety net you called ‘root oversight’ on my campus, and I am not paid enough to explain that to a board full of elves who think magic is something they buy, not something that can turn on them.”
+> D’Serris: “Your node is still standing. B2 is stable. The children down there actually did decent triage, considering.”
+> He let's the word hang- **children**.
+> Larkvale: "So it *was* them?"
+> D’Serris: “Who else? Oversight is gone. The root is… improvising. And it has opinions about your students.”
+> Larkvale: “Can you restore oversight?”
+> D’Serris: “Not remotely. Not now. That branch is dead. If we want eyes back on Avalon’s root segment, someone would have to go in from the _inside_.”
+> Larkvale: “I have a school to run.”
+> D’Serris: “You have a **containment project** to supervise.”
+> **BEAT**
+> “Or would you prefer we relocate it? Shut the campus, move the tap, let the root chew on some other town’s children?”
+> Larkvale: “…No. The Board would never go for it. Too much sunk cost. Too many eyes on Avalon as the ‘model.’”
+> “Fine. I’ll keep the lights on and the kids from dying in bulk. You keep your people from using us as a stress test for whatever half-buried mistake you made under this valley.”
+> D’Serris smiles without humor.
+> "Deal.
+> And Aldren?"
+> Larkvale: "What now?"
+> "Those three anomalies? The ones the root's cuddling up to?"
+> "Yes."
+> "Watch them. If oversight can't see throught their eyes anymore..."
+> (He dips a finger into the basin; the little motes flare.)
+> “…something else will.”
+> Larkvale's projection vanishes.
+> The room slowly returns to its low hum. Technicians shuffle back to their pillars, muttering about rerouting, local safeties, contingency drafts.
+> D’Serris stays at the basin, watching the Avalon node and its three little anomalies pulse in the dark.
+> Under the surface of the map, the main leyline trunk flexes once, like something rolling over in its sleep. For just a moment, the light isn’t blue or white at all – it’s the deep, angry red of blood seen through skin.
+> D’Serris closes his eyes.  
+>“Root oversight offline,” he says, to nobody in particular.  
+>“Let’s see what you do without a leash.”
+# Spin Alley