Session 159

General Summary

• Theran recovered from whatever issues were affecting him, though he's still not ready to open up to Dazki about whatever he's hiding.
• The party went to see Siraye. They had a short conversation with her, but she's mainly just concerned about where Riley is, insisting that she shouldn't be left "alone with her thoughts". Dazki tried to reassure her that they can find Riley again if needed using the pin point, but Siraye still wanted someone to be there with her.
• Siraye also mentioned that she was looking into Kalavan Zilch at Dazki's request, and that this was part of what caused Riley's outburst.
• They decided to try to resurrect Apple using a Reincarnate spell, with Dazki, Theran, and Marvin pooling some resources to do so.
• Dwardazik disagreed, feeling that the party's resources would be better spent on something that more directly relates to their mission, so he did not contribute.
• They then went to get some closure about Wendi, as she had missed the meeting that they had set up for her.
• Finding her around a fight between her familiar and "Barf", they realized that she was very hesitant about following through on it, so they introduced her to Jose Mightly directly, who was thrilled to have her around (though not for the same reasons why the party originally thought that he would want to meet her).
• Firelord Maota intercepted the party before they could take their long rest at The Dew Drop Inn, insisting that they accept Tex's hospitality and party at his sanctum, as this could very well be "one of their last nights on earth".
• Dwardazik challenged her to a drinking contest, which she accepted. She and Marvin were out at the same time, which she used as an excuse to make out.
• The next morning, Theran asked Tex to wait to start the mission until after they could resurrect Apple. Tex took offense to this: the mission hadn't even started yet, and the party were already spending limited time and resources on this side endeavor.
• Tex eventually accepted the party's material components and promised to have another druid cast the Reincarnate spell on their behalf, so they could move on.
• He shared the recon information (Editor's note: just scroll down for it), and then they had Virren teleport them to the staging area.
• Contrary to what the initial scrying revealed, a large tree was growing in the middle of staging area.
• Interaction revealed that it was hostile, and the party began combat with it and its nearby minions.

Full Recap

As Theran rests, Dazki is popping in from time to time, checking up on him. During one checkup, Theran is sitting up, alert. He insists that he's fine, but Dazki wants to chat about what's going on, so that he can know what's in store for the future. Theran says that it was his emotions that he had been bottling up from the scene at The Quicksilvers' estate. Dazki is skeptical, so Theran follows it up:

Theran: OK. Here's all that you guys really need to know about the circumstances.   Dazki sighs and rolls his eyes.   Theran: No one's been hurt. But the less that you know about the specifics of what went on before I met you guys, the less likely all of you are to get hanged.   Dazki: No offense, but we're already past that.   Theran: Uh-...heh-heh... I guess it's good that you think that? But let's go meet up with the others.   Dazki: I really want to know what you're hiding. I understand that you feel like it's for our own protection, and I appreciate that, but I would feel much more comfortable if you were to tell all of us. I try very hard not to keep secrets from you guys, even if I think it's for your advantage. I would really appreciate the same in return. I can't force you to tell me, and I'm not going to try, but just know that I would prefer walking into everything knowing all that's going on.   Theran thinks for a long time.   Dazki: Well, if you're going to keep this secret, fine, I respect your ability and your right to keep secrets, but it sounds like it is potentially a danger to all of us — whether we know it or not! — and I would feel much better actually knowing.

They leave the room, going back downstairs to the others, who are still arguing with Maca'an about the utility of honey and its fermented form. Maca'an — calling Marvin "little man" and getting chastised for it — offers Marvin a drink. Marvin asks for a recommendation, and Maca'an disappears for a bit, coming back with some old-looking bottles. He doesn't give much info about it, but he pours Marvin a mug. When Marvin drinks some, he gets the uncontrollable urge to break into song. He does this, as Maca'an sheepishly clarifies that a lot of his drinks are "recycled... nothing ever too bad, but I think the robustness of the drink more than makes up for any strange alchemical side-effects". Dazki takes a shot, and it makes him feel some temporary relaxation.   They spend a bit of time, then Dazki leads them to go see Siraye. Once they find the building, they see that she has been somewhat cordoned-off to a more isolated spot. Dazki enters first, and the rest of the party stays behind the curtain for a bit first.   Siraye's first question: where's Riley? Dazki explains that Riley was probably feeling guilty and couldn't handle seeing her this way. He goes on to recount what had happened to the others. She expresses her own guilt, since she's the one who "assembled the team" in the first place, but she goes back to Riley: where is she? Dazki doesn't know, but he reassures that he knows how to find her.

Siraye: Shit, well, she can't be alone right now!   Dazki: She didn't want anyone to be around her.   Siraye: I don't give a shit what she wants. I care about what she needs!   Dazki: Fair. Do you know what a pin point is?   Siraye: confused look   Dazki: It's like a special scrying focus. We had one that she now has. So, to find her, all you need to do is scry on that. It's basically a big scrying beacon.   Siraye: I don't think I can scry anymore...   Dazki: We can help. I don't think she's left the city yet, since she teleported back this morning.   Siraye: If you leave her alone with her thoughts, then it's only going to get worse. (She tries to sit up, but it doesn't go well.)   Dazki: Hey, hey. I'm sure you're right. I just didn't know what I can do to make it better. All I was gonna do is make things worse at that moment, you know? I tried to convince her to at least send a message, or to come see you, but she refused.   Siraye: That makes sense. She was pretty upset.   Dazki: And given everything that I had done, I didn't want to try to force anything upon her, causing more problems than it would solve.   Siraye: Does the city know what happened?   Dazki: Ehh... not really.   Siraye: I don't want to know what would happen if they confronted her right now.   Dazki: They know it was some kind of Turmoil event, and this morning we talked to the guy from the capital, Tex, who is here in charge of all the Turmoil stuff. He agreed to give us some time to convince Riley to work with us, and — as long as she doesn't use her powers — to basically look the other way. For now.   Siraye: Riley can't stand Tex, though.   Dazki: No, but if he is looking the other way and pretending she's not there, then maybe she won't have to deal with him.   Siraye: OK.   Dazki: And Tex promised that if his patience started to run thin, he would give us some kind of a warning and let us know ahead of time. So there'd be time to make plans, time to figure stuff out. So we did what we could to make sure the government is off Riley's back. For now.   Siraye: I'm just concerned about what she's going to do when no one's looking.   Dazki: Yeah.   Siraye: Her, alone with her own thoughts.   Dazki: I don't disagree. Has she ever mentioned the name Zilch to you? A magistrate?   Siraye: I just found out about that name recently. You told me to look into it.   Dazki: I think her place of safety is where he used to be. That's probably where she'll retreat to.   Siraye: Kind-of part of the argument... kind-of my fault...   Dazki: You can't control her actions. No more than you could ever control mine, or I could control yours. She made a choice, and I think she has realized the mistakes of that choice and will do better in the future, I hope.   Siraye: Whether or not she wants to do better is kind-of irrelevant. There's a madness about her, almost like a disease.   Dazki: Yeah, I don't know how to help with that. I would ask that you stay away from her, but... I know you won't. You're as stubborn as I am.   Siraye: It's just... I feel like the last thing you should do, when something dangerous is in need, is to let it fester.   Dazki: I just, I don't want you to end up here again.   Siraye: Well, I guess I have to make my own decision, then.   Dazki: Yep. And, hey, whatever you choose, I'm still there for you. Any day, any time.

Dazki invites the rest of the party into the room. He points to Marvin, saying that he is the designated survivor — and then gives Marvin the Bag of Holding. Theran brings up a superstition about "good guys" scrying on "bad guys". Siraye asks if they still have the rod — they do, and "for lack of a better option, it's coming with us". Siraye is curious why they don't just turn it over: they're concerned that the government can't be trusted with it, especially because of the timing of everything. There's some discussion about the situation, and Theran gives it "about a 3-out-of-10 chance" that Annu and Hestia "had a thing", before The Serpent War ushered in the transfer of power over to Scaldor. They say their good-byes to Siraye and move on.

---

They discuss a little bit about what can be done about Apple: Theran still doesn't have a "Grow New Body for Dead Guy" spell prepared, but the intention is to prepare it for the next day if the Archdruid isn't going to do anything about it, as long as they can pull together the reagent cost. Dwardazik gives a speech about conserving their resources for the bigger job that they have to do for the greater good of society and declines to risk the success of their mission just to bring back one side character — though he has a difficult time about it — but Dazki + Marvin + Theran decide to pitch in for it: Theran puts up 250gp, Dazki and Marvin each put up 225gp, and they sell the "WINNER" diamond to make up the other 300gp (keeping the paper that was attached to it).

---

They move on to try again to find Wendi: she didn't show up at the House of Crystal previously, and they wanted to see why not. Theran casts "Cheat at Hide-and-Seek" and finds her in an alleyway, where a crowd has gathered around two animals viciously fighting one another: Wendi's familiar ("Bubbles") and "Barf". As soon as Dwardazik sees that it's Barf, he runs in to break it up. Bubbles throws (hopefully) mud at Dwardazik's face. Dwardazik responds by kicking the baboon, who disappears in a puff of smoke.   Wendi claims that everyone at the House of Crystal was "really busy", which was why she backed out... but as they talk with her more, it becomes increasingly clear to everyone that she has a lot of anxiety over the meeting, so she's just looking for excuses. But she does float the idea that, if they "really wanted to help", they'd look into starting up something like the Scholar's Guild that Baxton had run in Ashport, since that had resonated with her.   She begrudgingly agrees to let the party walk her up to the House of Crystal. They get there, and the secretary sets up a meet with Jose. He has her start taking down notes about a bunch of mundane and seemingly irrelevant topics ("I have to get it out of my head, otherwise I don't have room for more things! I need lots of things right now!"), and he guides her back to another chamber. They leave, satisfied that she's on a decent track here.

---

Though the party have every intent to rest at The Dew Drop Inn, Firelord Maota shows up with a different idea: since this is "one of your guys's last days on earth, potentially", she wants to take Tex up on his offer to use his area's "near-unlimited alcoholic beverages" and let loose for the night. Dwardazik challenges her to a drinking contest on behalf of the party, and she accepts.   They party for a bit at Tex's, which involves Marvin playing a tune of some sort. They wrap it up with the drinking contest: Dazki is, as expected, out very quickly. Marvin and Maota are out at just about the same time, and Maota uses it as an excuse to get intimate with Marvin. Theran drunk-Sends a message to Dwardazik, and then they all take a long rest, Dwardazik insisting that he should take it on the other side of the portal.

Important Sub-Tex

The next morning, Tex gathers the party together, eager to get going. Theran and Dwardazik try to convince Tex to let them resurrect Apple before they leave, but he objects: the party's magical resources should be focused on the task at hand, and he seems slightly offended that they don't seem to be appropriately focused on the task at hand. They strike a compromise: Tex will enlist the services of a different druid to cast Reincarnate, but using the party's material reagents to do so.   Tex returns their Sending Stone: it's now attuned to him, and with slightly different properties: it can send 5 messages a day, though each message can only be the standard 25-words.   Recon:

• The staging area is a relatively peaceful field, 1 day's travel away from the site's entrance.
• Tex, personally, isn't convinced that the area is actually safe, so he wants the party to go there first before sending the supplies.
• The dwarven miners have abandoned the location itself long ago.
• Scrying hasn't revealed much: just a large pit in the ground.
• Scouts haven't been able to venture any further than a large worm guarding the entrance, but there are third-hand accounts:
• The mines are treacherous and abandoned with good reason. The halls are almost labyrinthian in nature. The lovely rust-colored walls sprout magical red rubies that have led the dwarven miners to call it "the bleeding mines".
• It's unclear how the dwarven miners managed to break in originally, but it's a good bet that "the bleeding mines" are still there.
• Tex isn't very impressed by the mapmaking skills of the dwarven miners: areas seem to overlap, the miners seem to frequently get lost, they've circled big treasures and never came back for them; however, after a bit of prodding from Dwardazik, Tex concedes that this could be the Turmoil at play.

Text feels that the party will need to get down to the very bottom of the mines with at least some of the explosives, since if they leave even the slightest bit unexplored at the depths, it could regrow.   With the briefing out of the way, Tex leads them out. Virren and some of his tree elementals are around. They finish casting a tree-based spell to transport the party to the staging area, along with two elite guards who are tasked with creating a more permanent portal.  

Setting the Stage...

The staging area looks normal enough to the party. One of the guards immediately begins ritual-casting a spell to create the more permanent portal, but the other guard voices concern: the large tree in the middle wasn't there the last time they scryed this area. (Nature 13) And it doesn't look native. Dazki shoots it with his bow; upon the arrow connecting, the tree reacts more like a beast, swelling and shaking. It grows, the ground around it seems to change into a fleshy texture, and some howling comes from the woods.

Combat Summary

• Marvin tried out the abilities of the Far Gear, which he has recently attuned to: he used its ability to summon an aberration that attacked the tree.
• At the end of each round of combat, the tree — and several nodules scattered throughout the area — would grow in size. Additionally, some additional creatures from the area would reveal themselves whenever this happened.
• (Insight 22) Dazki noticed that the tree and all the hostile creatures in the area serve one hive-mind, and so he asked everyone to focus on the tree.
• Marvin used a Confusion spell to make the wolves less of a threat.
• Theran followed up Marvin's Confusion with a Mega Frost Blast spell on those same wolves, killing nearly all of them.
• Marvin's aberration tried to cling onto the growing tree, but the tree grasped back at it, holding it in place.
• As one of the detached masses grew a bit more, Theran got grasped by it, unable to get away immediately.
• Marvin's Pyroconverger did very well against the tree and its bits.
• Dwardazik tried to break Theran free from the grapple, but he was stuck in there too tight.
• Theran failed to break free using strength, but a Speed-of-Light Starblink spell got him out anyway.
• Another growth trapped Dwardazik in place, since he was still there after trying to free Theran.